


A tale of Richard III after Bosworth: The White Boar and the Devil Black

by HaroldSaxon



Category: Richard III - Shakespeare, The Hollow Crown (2012), The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses (2016)
Genre: Angels, Atonement - Freeform, Benedict Cumberbatch - Freeform, Ghosts, Heaven, Madness, Murder, Other, Revenge, Richard III - Freeform, Richard III Benedict Cumberbatch - Freeform, Torture, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-13 05:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10507428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroldSaxon/pseuds/HaroldSaxon
Summary: Based on Shakespeare's play and BBC The hollow crown adaptation with Benedict Cumberbatch's performance of Richard III.Richard III of England dies at the hand of Henry Tudor on the battlefield of Bosworth, only to find himself resurrected and kept prisoner by Margaret, the defeated Lancastrian queen turned mad witch. She taunts him that she had struck a bargain with the devil for his soul. Richard escapes and finds himself entangled in a series of horrific misadventures. As the thin thread of fate that connects his life with the events that took place in heaven before his birth begins to unravel, Richard finally realizes that not only his own soul is at stake: The course of his actions after Bosworth will also have dire consequences for the rest of humankind.





	1. Prologue: The two angels

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Shakespeare's play and BBC The hollow crown adaptation with Benedict Cumberbatch's performance of Richard III. It could be considered a sequel to Shakespear's Richard III.

 

**The white boar and the devil black.**

A tale of Richard III after Bosworth.

**Prologue  
**

This story was told to me a long time ago. I wasn’t there when it happened. To be frank, most of us weren’t. However, I do trust the source of this tale. So when she told me, all what I am going to tell you is true, then I do believe it is.

There once were two angels who had been given the task to watch over a golden box that our creator had placed in heaven.

They had not been told what was inside, only to watch over it, and never to open it. As it was in the nature of angels to obey their lord and to never question his actions, they did what was asked. For centuries, they sat as protectors close to the relic, dutifully guarding it, protecting it from anyone curious enough to want to take a peek inside.

Thousands of years went by.

The earth turned, and the people that God had created, spread over the lands. They picked up shiny stones and sticks to make axes and spears, then arrows and swords. They elected strong leaders to help guide them to fertile lands, then the leaders confiscated all of that land and put down borders and walls, first in wood and stone, later in ink and paper. As greed settled into the hearts and minds of the humans, and drove them into quarrels, then fights, and later devastating wars, one of the angels saw what was happening, and became more and more disheartened by it all.

“Why does our father do nothing about this?” The angel with the black wings asked. “They are killing each other for a handful of dust. It is irrational and grotesque.”

“Are you watching them again?” The other angel remarked. He was white winged and stern of expression. “We are supposed to keep an eye on this box.”

“I am keeping an eye on it, but I can’t shut my eyes on what is going on below. This cannot be truly in our lord’s plans.”

“The humans create their own fate. We are not supposed to meddle with them. Stop thinking about it and keep yourself on the task at hand brother.”

The angel with the black wings tried very hard, but it was impossible not to be distracted. Of the two of guardians, he was the most kind of heart, and once he had acknowledged the existence of the world’s evil, he could no longer keep it out of his mind. For decades he pondered, questioning the violence of these strange biped monkeys who seemed to always strive to create their own version of hell on earth, while God had provided them with all they needed for paradise. When he failed to find an answer, he started doubting his own purpose.

“Why are we here?" He asked one day. "Why do we have to guard this relic while down on earth so much suffering is taking place? We have been gifted by our father to be able to perform the most amazing miracles. We can let it rain on parched lands to save the peasants from starvation. We can stop one army from slaughtering another by sending down a flock of ravens to scare the men off the battlefield. We can set fire to the chamber of an tyrant king when he turns to bed at night and put an end to his wicked reign. Why don’t we do all that instead of staying here and watching over this silly little box.”

“As I have said before, we cannot meddle with the humans.” The other angel replied, getting agitated. “And how dare you mock the sanctity of the task that our father has given us. Now hold your tongue and keep good watch.”

The dark winged angel did not speak again for a very long time, but his mind kept turning. When he opened his mouth again a century later, he was determined that he had found the answer to all of his questions.

“You do believe that we are guarding something important, don't you?” He asked the other angel.

His heavenly brother sighed, exasperated. “Yes, yes I do believe it of significance.”

“Why else ask the two of us to guard it.” The dark winged angel mused.

“That is correct.”

The dark winged angel paused for a moment, then continued. “Do you think the answer is inside that box?”

“Answer to what?”

“The answer to all of these troubles.” The angel gestured to the earth below. “To all that misery caused by humankind.”

“It’s not our duty to question what is inside. We’ve not been told what it is, and we shouldn’t want to know. My merciful brother, this incessant pondering on this subject really does not do you any good. I beg you, let it finally rest.”

“No, no, listen. I have been thinking it through for quite a while now, so please humor me and listen. I have a theory."

"You have a theory?" The white winged angle arched his eyebrow. It was most uncommon for any of the hosts to have an idea of their own. The last time that one of their heavenly brothers came up with something original it had not exactly ended well.   

"Yes! Yes!" The dark winged angel continued enthusiastically, completely oblivious that the other guardian was getting quite alarmed. "You see, if our lord is indeed as perfect as we believe he is…”

"He is perfect in every way. I never doubt that.”

“And thus the plans he makes are equally without flaw...”

“They are. That is more than certain.”

“Then the two of us must also be part of some sort of plan...” The dark winged angel held in his breath, waiting for his white winged brother to catch up with his thoughts.

“Yes, we all serve a purpose and play a dutiful part in our lord’s design.”

“Exactly. Now what if my purpose is to make an end to all of this human misery. What if our father has placed this box in our care, because he knew that I would see what is going on earth, and also knew that I won’t be able to endure it.”

Before he could be stopped, the black winged angel had taken the golden box.

“What if God wanted me to open this…What if inside lies the solution to all the woes of human kind.” He paused, and holding the relic in his hands, he gazed with great anticipation at this heavenly brother.   

“You want to open it, don’t you?” The other angel said warily.

“And you will not let me?” The dark winged angel asked, sensing that he had not been able to sway his mind.

The other angel slowly shook his head.

It was said that on the day that the two angels fought over the box’s possession, the midday sun was hidden behind a black shield, and that the darkness became so great that farmers had to work in the fields by torchlight. When night came, a storm settled over the land, and brought out between the rushing rain clouds, a dark and ominous sky. The clock struck 12 when in the west a falling star was seen, burning fierce like a small sun with a flame-like tail, cutting through the black canvas. To all who witnessed it, it was considered a very bad omen.

Nine months after these events, at exactly the first stroke of midnight, my mother, screaming of pain and exhausted after 5 hours of long labor, gave birth to a baby boy. At first when his legs appeared the wet nurses still believed that it was going to be normal and healthy child. It wasn’t after my mother gave the final push and the child fully entered into this world that the women folk found out that the infant was not normal at all.

I was born as a deformed little lump that from the waist up, resembled more a twisted sapling than the fruit of a our noble family tree. The most superstitious under my father’s servants would later blame the falling star for my parents’ ill fortune. My mother, they said, would have been given such a fright by the very sight of these evil omens on the day that I was conceived, that her womb must have contracted, misshaping my father’s seed, which had resulted in my most imperfect state. Preposterous as these old fishwives tales may be, they were right about one thing. My birth did have something to do with what had occurred that day in heaven. Only, it wasn’t till much later that I found out how that exactly was.  

 

 


	2. Epilogue: Bosworth

 

**Bosworth, 1485**

 

No-one prepared me for death.

Not my proud father, who had taught me to ride a horse and hold my lance right to strike down fiercely at the enemy soldiers who were scattering like frightened mice before my galloping steed.

Yet…to my anger, I managed to get my horse stuck in marshy grounds, and was unhorsed by a lowly foot soldier who got hold of my leg and dragged me down into the mud with him.

Not my kingly brother Edward, who had taught me to fight, and fight rather well with the long sword. He had trained me to slash and hack with such furious force through the army of hostile men, that they fell like sacks of bloody fruit around me.

Yet this could not protect me from the axe that was wielded outside my view, and the blade came crushing down on the back of my head, making a sickening sound as it splintered my skull.

It wasn't my dear, dear brother Clarence who had taught me to drop on my knees, shaking in horror and pain, with my vision blackening fast as blood gushed out of the hideous wound and flooded down my neck into my armor.

I was still holding on to my sword, trembling like a leaf and pulling in ragged, painful breaths, when Richmond appeared, a dark vision of my final fate. He knocked me back with his boot, felling me to the ground and blowing the last air out of my lungs. Grimacing, I screwed my eyes up to the sky, and saw that the sun has disappeared behind clouds that were grey and cold. Richmond's shadow loomed. With a single hand he removed his helmet to reveal the face of an eager young man. It was the mad gleam in his eyes that I recognized all to well. The golden crown I still wore on my head must shine at him like a beacon luring a ship at stormy sea.

The usurper raised his sword, and drove it deep into the base of my throat.

The last thing I remembered was that I wanted to scream, but the only sound I made was a frightened gargle while I tasted my own blood welling up in my throat. The rest of it was seeping out fast, turning the muddy pool in which I lay into a crimson mess.

That was how I learned to die, on the cold fields of Bosworth, all by myself.

 And that, really, should have been the end of me.

Only it wasn't.

 

 


	3. Chapter 1: Margaret

 

**1.1.**

It was the mad witch who woke me.

Mad she had been for a good number of years. Ever since she lost her precious son, her husband king and the English crown to my family, and was made prisoner by my late brother Edward, Margaret of Anjou had been raving mad. A lunatic in a faded red queen's dress, dirty and torn, who wandered aimlessly through the castle corridors like some forlorn silver haired ghost. My brother pitied her deeply when he was still alive. He had a tender heart for damaged women, and had allowed her to live outside a prison cell and walk around unchained and unchecked. For what could this poor defeated wreck still do to the glorious sons of York? She is obviously driven insane by her grief, and no longer a danger to anyone.

But I was far less charmed by her presence. Nor was I so easily fooled. Mad or not, Margaret still believed she was rightful queen of England and acted not much like a defeated prisoner but more like an eccentric house guest who hid a dagger in her sleeves, waiting for the night to come to slit our naked throats.

Whenever I was so unlucky to bump into her during my daily routines, the hag would curse me in such a terrible way that even my brother's most lowliest servants would cover their ears to block out the horrible profanity.

From the three York brothers she hated me the most. For Margaret may be crazy like a bag of March hares, she still remembered. She knew who had put the many holes in the heart of her husband, the truly pitiful but weak king Henry, who was more fit to be a dead saint than a living ruler. She remembered who had slit her beloved boy's throat and had laughed merrily at her tears as the last of her hope bled to death right in front of her eyes.

Not one night had I slept with my bedchamber door unlocked when Margaret of Anjou was allowed to roam free in the king's palace.

And now, as I opened my eyes, not to the grey and cold sky hanging low above Bosworth, but to a dark stone ceiling, it was Margaret who greeted me. Her face hovered close to mine in the flickering light of a candle.

I believed that I was to pay dearly for these past moments of small pleasures.

"Devil! Are you awake?" Her breath stank of cesspits. Her wild strands of hair crawled over my hollow cheeks like spider-legs.

"Devil! Do you hear me?"

Courtesy to Richmond's blade, my vocal cords were slashed. All I could utter were only the weakest, most pitiful sounds, like the mewling of a sick newborn kitten.

"Oh you can! You _can_ hear me!" Margaret's eyes widened with joy, and her chapped lips pulled into a wide grin.

"It worked! The spell worked! I brought you back from the doors of hell."

Her grin abruptly disappeared. "Not that you deserve to be spared. Oh no, not vile Richard, the uprooting hog of Gloucester." She raised her chin and swayed from side to side, twirling a lock between her filthy fingers while exuberating pure contempt.

"I should have left you there in hell to rot." She stabbed an accusing finger into the still raw open wound in my throat, causing me to almost pass out.

"Why did he make me bring you back?! Why!" She suddenly wailed, poking repeatedly into the torn tissue as fresh blood welled up in my mouth. "Instead of closing this hole I should just make it larger." She whispered, pressing her lips against my ear. "Widen it from ear to ear till I can see the white of your neck bones, just like you have done to my poor son." Her voice was shivering, raw with grief and rising rage. She took out a dagger and showed me a signet ring marked with the red Lancasterian rose. "Oh, I should avenge my sweet boy today and wash his emblem clean in your cursed blood."

She pushed the blade on my throat. For a heartbeat, I truly believed that she was going to dispatch me. Such hatred blazed from her eyes, it turned my heart cold with fear. But then the malice slowly subsided, and her gaze became distant and dull. She stared at the dagger and her son's signet ring for a long time, holding on to them aimlessly, before finally putting them away.

Instead of cutting my throat, she pushed a foul smelling concoction of green mush and spit into my wounds, which she prepared by chewing herbs and mixing potions in her mouth. Then she dressed my injuries with clean ribbons of linen, wrapping me up till I was swaddled like an infant.

"Rest" She finally said, after she was done.

She did not need to tell me twice. Even before she had left my side, I had already drifted into deep dark oblivion.

 

**1.2**

"Are you awake uncle Richard?"

Two boys were standing in front of my bed. Bathing in halos of saintly light, one was 13, the other 10. They were rose-cheeked and healthy looking, just like their doting mother Elizabeth would undoubtedly prefer to remember them. Forever would they stay this way, basking in the innocence of youth, for prince Edward and his brother Richard were no longer bothered by the arduous toils of us mortals.

Prince Edward and prince Richard were very much dead, and I had been the one responsible for their premature demise.

"He's not answering. Do you think he's still asleep, like we once were beneath the staircase?" Asked Richard, always the less sharp minded of the two.

Edward shook his head at his younger sibling. "His eyes are open. He cannot speak because the mad witch has not healed all of his wounds yet."

"But we don't need our wounds to heal. We don't even need our own bodies to be here."

"He is not a ghost like we are, Richard. He is still alive."

"But you said uncle Richard was dead." my poor little nephew sounded really disappointed now. "You said he was cut to pieces by Henry Tudor and the great army he brought with him from France."

"Uncle Richard did die, but now he's alive again. The mad witch brought him back." Edward came closer, and studied the rhythmic rising of my chest. "Come here and I will show you." He beckoned. "Look, he's breathing. Can't you see? And look, he just blinked his eyes."

His little brother cautiously crept closer and examined the signs of life that Edward had so smartly pointed out to him.

"How come he is the one who is brought back?" Richard asked with bitterness in his young voice. "This is so unfair! Uncle Richard sent out his men to murder us in the Tower. He is a villain! Why is he allowed to live again while we have to stay dead? Our poor mother doesn't even know where he has buried us! "

"We are still ghosts because the witch has no use for us. She undoubtedly has use for uncle Richard." Edward explained patiently. He studied me closely. I had never liked the brat when he was still alive. Too wise and too just for his young age, he was more often harder to sway than his kingly buffoon of a father. Indeed, it didn't take him long to see through my stone-faced façade.

"Are you afraid uncle?” The youngster asked with a sly little smile, so very smug that he had spotted it. ”You remember how we visited you in your sleep the night before the battle of Bosworth? We cursed you. We bid you despair and defeat and ruin. We wished with so many others who you have wronged that your enemies would strike you without mercy and bring you down. How did it feel uncle? How did it feel to die alone?"

I was struggling to breathe. My heart was pounding in my chest like a rabbit chased by greyhounds. This horrible specter cannot be real. I was not awake, but ailing, caught in a web spun by my own coward conscience. It must be.

"Edward, I don't think uncle Richard really believes he has died." Richard remarked, somehow capable of reading my mind. "He thinks Margaret found him in the field after the battle was over and brought him here alive."

"Is that true uncle Richard? Edward commented. "Do you truly believe that mad Margaret saved you on a whim and that you were spared?"

"I know, you should tell him!" Little Richard clapped in his hands in excitement. "Tell him what they did to him afterwards, that will make him remember."

Edward, always the good older brother who was keen to humor his sibling, gave the brat an affectionate smile before he gazed back at me with a cruel glint in his eyes.

"Come on, tell him like you told me. Don't leave out any gory details!" His younger brother urged.

_Children, aren't they just the world's true delight._

"Shall I uncle?" Edward said, grinning with malicious anticipation. "Let me see, after Henry Tudor cut your throat and left you to bleed out like a slaughtered hog in the muddy field..."

Edward's words conjured up a frightening reality. The stone walls in which I was entombed melted away to be replaced by the blood-soaked fields of Bosworth. I was lying once again on the cold ground. My eyes were still open and stared blankly up to the sky as I witnessed from the corner of my eyes how Richmond took my crown away. Blood dripped down, blurring my sight and stained my world crimson as I watched how he raised my crown high for all to see, before placing it on his own head. His companions let out a loud cheer of victory.

Then Richmond stepped aside.

His men, still charged with the mad rush of battle and overflowing with hatred for their enemy, stripped me from my armor, leaving me naked and exposed to their scorn.

They laughed at my deformity.

They spat at me and dragged me down the hillside.

"See for whom you have fought for!" They jeered, taunting my defeated troops, forcing them to bear witness to my ruin.

"Come and see your dethroned tyrant king! We have skinned this vicious hog, and see what we found beneath, a deformed crippled monster! A foul wretched beast whose existence was an offence to all Godly men of England! Come and see!"

The first lance struck me between my ribcage.

The second pierced my side.

Countless more attacks followed. A minor noble who had sworn me loyalty but had betrayed me during battle stuck his sword in my buttocks and was rewarded with a roar of laughter from Henry's men. Stones were thrown, making black and blue blooms on my dead flesh. The traitor Norfolk bound my hands and feet and hoisted me over the back of a mule. As Richmond's army made their way to Leichester, I was paraded through the streets, stripped from cloak, armor and crown, exposed shamefully to the common mob to be jeered and spat at.

"The injuries that killed you were just two, but the wounds that the angry crowds inflicted on you after your death were numerous." Edward continued. "Despite your arrogance and ferocious ambition, you were no more fit to be king than old king Henry was. At least king Henry was pious and good and had the heart of the people. You, on the other hand…no-one had any pity for you."

The world shifted before my eyes. I was staring at what was left of me, being dragged through the filth in the streets. When we finally reached the castle, I was hoisted up by the neck to be hanged from the parapets above Traitor's gate.

"And there you were left rot. Exposed to the rain and sun with crows plucking at your flesh, till good Richmond was crowned Henry Tudor king of England. The newly anointed king finally decided to be merciful to the last of the York kings. However, there was of course, not to be a Godly burial for a dethroned tyrant."

My body, rotten and bloated with maggots and swarming with black flies, was tossed unceremoniously into a shallow grave in the cemetery of the Black-friars monastery, far away from public eye. No stone was placed to mark the grave. King Henry did not want anyone to find me or mourn my passing.

He did not need to worry, for there was no-one left in this world who would.

"So now you see uncle." Edward concluded. "You were dead."

He paused and observed the tears rimming in eyes with as little compassion as I had once showed him and his sibling during life.

"I don't think he likes your story very much." Richard said softly.

"Tears from a pitiless murderer who loves no-one in the world but himself. My dear brother, I don't think that my cold dead heart is moved much."

“Neither is mine...” Little Richard paused for a while to think, then asked. "What will become of him now Edward?"

"I don't know. To the rest of the England, he's dead. If there is any justice, his name will be erased from history by the new king."

"What does Margaret want with him?"

Edward shook his head. "What is going on in the mad queen's head, only Margaret knows."

"And us, what shall become of us?" Richard asked worriedly.

"My poor little brother.” Edward placed his hand on his sibling’s shoulder. “We are ghosts now, haunting spirits who are bound to our wretched uncle. As long as he is still alive, I am afraid we shall find no peace."

"Then we must stay in the shadows by his side and wait. She hates him. She remembers what he has done to her family. She wouldn't want to keep him alive for very long."

"I did wonder if Margaret was only bringing him back to make him suffer more." Edward taunted, undoubtedly taking pleasure in the raw fear his words sparked in my heart. "I agree with you brother. We should keep an eye on him. Who knows what Margaret has is store for our traitor uncle."

"Besides, everything is better than to go back underneath the staircase and sleep." Little Richard complained. "Being dead is truly boring, nothing ever happens to us anymore."

Both of them started to drift away, back into the shadows. Their pale shining frames were fading fast till they were but two dots of light in the darkness.

_Oh how I longed for the quiet and boredom of death..._

 


	4. Chapter 2: Running from the devil

**1.1.**

**La Trappe,1452**

In a monastery of the order of the Cistercian of the strict observance, somewhere in the north of France, a man who had once forgotten his past suddenly found himself having an epiphany.

It was during the late mass when the brethren were congregated in the chapel to worship in silence that this slow trickle of awareness came to him. The knowledge entered his mind like a timid animal approaching an oasis in the dry dessert, and filled in the wide open gaps of his memories, which until now did not stretch back any further than 9 months before.

The peasants who worked the lands of the monastery had found him. He was drifting face down in the river on the day of bad omens, when the sun was swallowed up and the falling star had appeared in the night’s sky. Realizing that he was not dead, they brought him to the Cistercians to recover. There it was quickly established that the man could not recall who he was. Grateful to the monks and fully convinced that his miraculous rescue was the work of god, the man then decided to dedicate the rest of his life in service of the lord. Three weeks after he was taken to the monastery, he took the vow of silence to become a Cistercian novice. He had spoken no more than 2 words ever since.

It was only now that he realized that his true self absolutely loathed that he had taken this rash decision. He was not particularly the silent wilted flower type. By the time the extremely dull sermon had passed for more than two third, he had become fully aware of who he really was. He also knew that he needed to get the heck out of there. His knees were cold from kneeling on the damp stones and his neck was getting rather stiff from all that senseless worshipping. So he rose up, brushed the dust from his robe and strolled away. The other brethren, although shocked by this open display of insubordinance, could not and _really_ _could not_ say a word about it.

Not that he cared. He had served the lord long enough to know that prostrating oneself on the floor, reciting hollow words and holding in your pee for hours on end was not going to bring you any closer to his good grace than shagging a cartload of pineapples would. The very thought of fruit made him hungry, and he went into the kitchen in search for something to eat. The standard meals in the monastery were appalling, and he wrinkled his nose at the smells of the horrors that today’s supper had in stall, which was basically cabbage stew, reheated for the umptiest time in the bubbling pots till it was like liquid fart with bits in it. Also, the starvation portions that he had endured for so long were no longer going to satisfy his rediscovered ravenous appetite. He rummaged through the larder, and found in the back, stacked high in round wicker baskets, the autumn harvest of apples from the monastery’s orchard. They were red and shiny, and looked deliciously seductive. Taking one and wolfing it down eagerly, he mused over his re-established identity, and tried to link what he now could remember to his current state.

“Lucifer.” He muttered to himself, stripping the flesh in two mouthfuls so he was almost left with nothing but the core. “You old devil, how did you end up here on earth?”

There was of course the rebellion thing, that one tiny misstep that happened a few eons ago, that he must not forget to incorporate into this cause-and-effect evaluation.

Heaven forbid ( _literally)_ that he would.

His creator had been terribly angry with him for being responsible for the fall of more than half of the angelic brigade, not to mention for almost bringing about the end of all of creation. But…like a painter who detested how some of his work had turned out, but did not have the heart to destroy it, so was God not able to destroy his first, and most beautiful of angels. Instead, he was banished, imprisoned in the chaoplasm, the realm between realities, a shapeless void where there was absolutely nothing. Boredom quickly settled, and proved so upsetting to his otherwise inquisitive and ambitious mind that it soon drove him to the lowest point of his existence. He would even have seriously contemplated self-destruction, so hopeless his condition had seemed, if it wasn’t for the flaw he finally discovered in his father’s plan. The recollection of the two angels that his father had assigned as guardians to watch over his prison brought a smile to his face.

“Rahmiel.” He whispered, recalling the dark winged angel of mercy. He wondered what had become of him. “Oh brother, where are you now?” He added mockingly.

The smile quickly faded and was replaced by a grimace. He reached for his right shoulder and traced with his nimble fingers over a long jagged scar. It ran from his shoulder-blade all the way down over the side of his arm to the back of his hand. This phantom pain stirred in Lucifer not so much a memory, but more a type of alertness. He was starting to become aware of something urgent. Something that he needed to take care of immediately, or otherwise it could endanger his own existence. Anxious, he tried to dig deeper in his recollections, but much to his frustration, he could not recall why exactly he was in such danger. He could not even remember the origin of the strange scar that marked his new human-like form.

Then the bells in the tower rang to announce the end of the mass, and the disturbing thought slipped through the sieves of the fallen angel’s mind, like water through fingers. Lucifer closed his eyes, pinched his nose bridge, and shook his head to clear his thoughts. When he opened them again he stared at the baskets filled with apples for a while, till the rumbling of his stomach reminded him that he still was ravenous. He tossed the apple core away, picked up a new one from the stash, and took a juicy bite.

Whatever he had forgotten, surely it would come back to him again.

 

**1.2.**

Time passed unnoticed in my little stone prison without windows. In the complete darkness that dominated this place, my mood cycled between despair and horror, being at the constant mercy of a crazy old crone, and utterly defenseless against her sudden outburst of rage.

Whenever Margaret was in one of her many, _many_ , foul moods, she would torture me.

She did it in such a way that it remained a mystery to me if these were indeed the conscious acts of a women thirsting for revenge, or just the random operations of a crazy old bat.

When she tended my bandages, she would suddenly rip open my old wounds with her long fingernails, sticking them deep into the flesh like a hungry vulture would her talons.

She would patiently hand-feed me with a spoon when I was still too weak to feed myself. Then she would starve me for weeks on end and let me almost die of thirst, leaving me begging for a drop of water, while trying to lick the damp from the stone walls.

She would playfully pick at the scabs from my wounds till they were once again weeping blood, all the while humming a pleasant nursery rhyme as if she was trying to put an infant to sleep.

She would press a burning candle on my cheek and hold it there, completely oblivious to my cries for mercy till the stench of black-scarred flesh snapped her out of whatever far-away fancy her musing had taken her.

And, as Margaret’s unpredictability kept me terrified during all of my waking hours, then there was also no peace for me during my hours of slumber, for my dear little princely nephews kept visiting me in an endless string of nightmares.

Getting no pity from the dead nor the living, it didn’t take long for Margaret’s madness to poison my wits.

Often, I started awake, unable to distinguish night from day. In this total darkness, I lay perfectly still, paralyzed with fear as I tried to listen for the footsteps that will bring my tormentor at my bedside. I waited with my heart pounding in my throat till the light of her candle spread out over the floor and revealed her wrinkled face, all the while expecting to see the glint of a blade half-hidden behind the back of her hand.

Waiting for that withered old witch to inflict more suffering on me was all I could do these days. I started to believe that this was what hell would look like.    

“You are awake dog?” Margaret asked, revealing to be holding in her hand not her dagger and favorite torture instrument, but a crusty loaf of bread this time. She pushed it impatiently into my own trembling hands. “I brought you something to eat. So eat!”

I broke off a piece and stuffed it into my mouth, eager to keep her pleased. It didn’t take long before my stomach reminded me of how starved I actually was. Before I knew it, I was shamelessly wolfing down the entire loaf.

Margaret grabbed my right arm, which had been shaped like a dry and twisted branch from birth, and started unwrapping the crusted cloths. “Your wounds have healed up fast.” She muttered while she examined it.

She wasn’t lying. Despite her horrific punishments, she had also taken care of me. The head wound at the back of my skull had healed into a soft patch of scarred skin and was quickly becoming covered with hair. The large gaping hole in my throat, which she had stitched close with a bone needle and thread made of sinew, had also closed up, leaving a long scabrous jagged line.

Margaret's gaze caught my eyes. “Do you wish to speak?”

I shook my head, and turned away, fearing to evoke her anger, but her grip tightened into a fist and pulled me closer. “You wish to speak dog? Speak then!” She snarled and snapped at me like a feral hound. “Or have you forgotten how?” She pulled out her dagger and pressed the tip at a vein in my wrist, drawing blood.

“No!” I uttered. My own voice sounded strange to me, weak and unnatural after months of disuse. “No….please!”

Margaret pulled her lips into a wide grin. “Not mute then, and not witless.” Dropping the dagger, she climbed on top, straddling me like a horse. Slowly, she bend forward and clutched my head between her dirty hands. “Not too damaged.” She mused, as she continued to examine me, staring right into my eyes. “The dog still barks. The wheels still turn, and the serpent still ponders. Makes me wonder what is in the hog’s mind.”

I gathered whatever courage I had left to face my wretched tormentor. “Why.” I swallowed hard before I could continue in a steadier voice. “Why did you bring me back?”

“It was not by my will that you are here. If it was up to me you will be still rotting in the ground, feeding the worms fat and happy.” She hissed, spittle flying from her lips. “But I made a bargain. I was promised the sweet taste of vengeance if only I would do one thing in exchange for my benefactor. Little did I know that what he asked for was the soul of the very man I wanted dead.”

“With whom did you make this bargain?” I asked, fearing her answer.

“The devil.” A hysteric giggle escaped her throat. “Who else would be interested in such a rotten, evil, and traitorous soul?” She threw back her head and closed her eyes as if in meditation, throwing a long slivering shadow on the opposite wall. “I found him in the woodland, one dark night, a moon or two after your usurper brother Edward died. The entire kingdom was in deep mourning.” She opened her eyes again and looked down at me. “But you wouldn’t have shed a tear, would you? You monster. You were too busy waiting in the wings, plotting and scheming.”

“I did not kill my brother Edward.” I muttered, feeling the urge to speak in my own defense.

Margaret threw back her head and laughed at me. “Oh are your virtues truly so few that you have to desperately count on the evils you have NOT committed to tip the moral scale in your favor? I did not say you killed Edward yourself, but you wished him dead. That’s the truth. Do not deny it! I wished him dead too, but for reasons far more just than yours. So I should have been joyful when the bells rang to proclaim the death of a man who had plotted the murder of my poor husband. Instead, I was grieving, heartbroken, because I knew, I have seen, what was to come after. The two York wolves might have been slaughtered, but the most vicious one who has been at his sibling’s throats is still roaming the lands, and will soon bleed England dry. On that moon-lit night, I went to the side of the forest river that crossed my path. I looked down in the dark water below and I saw war. I saw kinsman murdering kinsman. Children of noble birth smothered in their sleep. I saw the stream turn red with the blood of the innocent, all to feed the ruthless rise of this false tyrant, for there was no-one left to stop him.” She pulled in a shaky breath, her hands tightening into fists in front of her bosom. “It was then that he appeared to me, this devil man, a great ancient sorcery, a demon with the power of changing time itself. He showed me how the future could be. Our realm spared from the blood-soaked reign of this false Richard. Oh how peaceful our lands would finally be! And all he asked in return was that I would yield to him, and swear to do the devil’s biddings.” 

“There is no such thing as the devil. You’re making this all up to torment me.”

“Is there not?” She brought out a small circular mirror.

“Look!” She ordered, her voice raised in anger. “Look at yourself!”

Unable to ignore her command, I glanced at my own wretched reflection. As if by witchcraft, the flesh started to peel away from my skull, baring the white bones and dry sinews underneath. I let out a startled cry when my eyes, having suddenly turned dead and cold, burst open with wriggling maggots. They spilled down my fleshless cheekbones like fat round drops of tears.

“That’s how I found you. A decaying wreck. When I dug you up in the cemetery there was barely enough flesh left to keep your bones together. If it wasn’t for the Devil’s spells, you would have turned into a pile of white bones by now.”

“Please….make it stop.” I begged, unable to take my gaze from my decaying self. “Make it stop! Please!”

“Admit that the Devil is real and I shall let you go.”

I did as I was commanded, and took in a ragged breath when she broke the unnatural hold that she had over me. The mad witch gave me a long pitiful look as I cringed away from the cursed mirror, shivering like a child.

“Oh poor villain. The devil is real.” She finally said to me, petting my hair almost lovingly. “You think me mad, but I have spoken the truth. And now that all what he had promised had come to pass, he will soon come. He will come to me.”

She placed a Judas kiss on my forehead, and wiped the tears from my eyes, before granting me a final, deranged smile.

“And on that day he claims his price, I shall receive my final gift.”

 

**1.3.**

_This would not do._

_This stone tomb in which she had tried to bury me alive._

_This darkness she had cast me in, these terrors she exposed me to, threatening me with countless tortures of my flesh and mind._

_It would not do._

_I must relearn my legs to be strong, to carry my shivering frame from bed and back. Small steps, not to be made in haste but with great patience, until I can walk without support. I must train my arms and hands to reach out and tighten into fists, to learn once more to hold a weapon, so I can cut my way out of here._

_I will not allow Margaret to be my jailor forever. I will not die by her hands. Despite being a witch, she’s still only an old woman, frail and wretched, and more than twice my age. As soon as I have regained my strength, I will strike. I will kill her. Wrench the life out of her dried up husk, and relish in that most pleasurable act, before I escape this cursed prison._

_I swear I will see Margaret dead, before I let her harm me again._

 

**1.4.**

My hands traced the walls in darkness, and finally found the door that was the entrance to my cell. Sinking through my knees, I crouched down by the side, my grip tightening around a spike that I had fashioned out of a wooden candleholder. I have worked it against the stones patiently till it was as sharp as a knife’s end. A giggle escaped my throat as I imagined what great pleasure it would be to use this to put out Margaret’s mad old eyes.

“What are you doing uncle?” My bothersome nephew Richard asked.

Why my brother’s dead brats have also started to appear in my waking hours to haunt me I did not know, but for ghosts, they certainly were more exasperating than they were fearsome.

“Why are you hiding?”

“It does not concern you. Leave me in peace!” I snapped back, and prayed that it was enough to shut the brat up.

“Are you going to kill Margaret with that?” Little Richard peered over my shoulder as I tried to turn my back on him. “You think that is enough to strike her down?”

“Well it certainly should be enough for your scrawny little neck.” I muttered.

“You cannot harm me uncle Richard.” The boy replied, not without a hint of smugness. “Edward told me you can’t. So there is no use in trying to frighten me. I won’t go away.”

Much to my dismay, the bold little devil came over and sat down beside me.

“I don’t think you can kill a witch just by using a pointy stick.” He pondered. “Are you not afraid of what she might do to you if you fail? She could turn you into a toad, or worse, a hedgehog.”

“Why in the name of good reason would a hedgehog be any worse than…look why don’t you go seek out your older brother. Go discuss with him your seemingly endless moments of pure wonder for a lifetime or two."

“Edward is sleeping. He sleeps a lot. You don’t sleep. You are always awake. You’re far more fun to be with.”

“Am I now.” I bit on my lower lip till it tasted blood. “I didn’t know that I was this good with stupid little boys.”

Before the child could bother me again, foot steps were heard outside the cell.

“It’s the mad witch!” Richard exclaimed, shattering my nerves. “She’s coming! She’s coming for you uncle Richard! She is coming!”

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I shouted, finally losing it, and pressing my hands on my ears while banging the back of my head against the wall. It was only then that I realized that Margaret would only have heard my own mad ramblings, not the cries of my overexcited nephew. The sound of a key slowly turning in the padlock sent me jumping up like a winded coil. The door opened and widened slightly, spilling a narrow band of light on the floor.

Raising the spike high in my trembling hands, I was prepared to fight or die.

But Margaret did not appear.

I swallowed hard. Still holding my position, still ready to strike, I waited, holding in my breath. Seconds ticked by, then minutes.

Still, Margaret did not enter.

“I don’t think she is coming.” My nephew whispered.

“No, no, no.” I mumbled. “It’s a trick. She will come. She’s trying to catch me off guard. As soon as I lower my weapon…”

“What, your pointy stick?”

The boy rolled his eyes at me and moved closer to the door. Unrestrained by the fear that had left me indecisive, he even ventured out of my stone prison to take a look outside.

“There is no-one there.” He informed me when he returned.

“That can’t be true.” I whispered, shaking my head wildly in disbelief.

“I am not lying to you. Go take a look for yourself.”

Anxious, I crept closer to the door and I peered my head around the corner, while making sure that I kept myself shielded for any possible attacks.

My nephew was right. The corridor outside my prison cell was empty.

“You see, no sign of Margaret.” Little Richard told me. “But you better make haste if you wish to escape.”

I moved as fast as my legs could carry me. Down the long corridor lit by torches I went till I reached a flight of stairs. After I struggled up the winding steps and entered another corridor that was above ground, I started to recognize my surroundings. I was in Westminster palace. The witch had kept me in the dungeons of the royal palace. If Henry Tudor’s men found me here, I should not expect to live. But on the other hand, I have lived in this place for over a decade, first in servitude of my king brother, later as the monarch of the realm. I knew the building’s ancient plan by heart. If I could reach the small antechamber in front of the lord chamberlain’s court and enter a hidden passageway that led to the sewer exit, I shall be out of harm’s way. I started to compose the shortest possible routes from my recollections. My mind became so occupied, that I did not notice that I had accidentally entered an occupied chamber.

A young boy stood in front of the fireplace and was staring at me in silent awe. He was dressed in fine red cloth, and swung a practice sword made of wood. His servant, who had been carrying the child on his back the moment I entered, raised himself up immediately. “How dare you to enter the prince privy chambers!” He placed himself between me and the child. “Guards! Come quickly! There is an intruder in here!” He shouted.

I did not wait for the guards to come but spurred my legs to run. Out I went of the vestibule and into the courtyard. The place was crowded with the king’s entourage, lured out into the open by the gentle spring sun. I hurtled my way through a procession of court ladies who shrieked and recoiled when they saw me pass by. The armed guards, meanwhile, were right at my heels. As I reached the entrance to the smaller inner courts, I pulled down a heavy rack of lances in an attempt to slow them down, while picking up a sword on the way.

Stumbling into the antechamber, I ran straight for the wall in the east that faced the courtyard, and cut down a heavy tapestry depicting my brother Edward’s favorite hunting-scene to reveal the entrance. I had not used this doorway for a long time, and searched in blind panic for the right stone to push to unlock the hidden door, while the clattering of armored boots and metal tassets reached the inner court.

“It’s this one uncle Richard!” My nephew pointed out a red brick that unlike the others was not covered in sooth. I pushed on it with the palm of my hand and to my great relief, it gave way, triggering a mechanism that opened up a whole section of the wall. I slipped inside, just in time for the armed guards to see me disappear behind the closing structure.

I leaned back against the tunnel walls and breathed out a ragged sigh. As I turned to scuffle into the pitch-black tunnel, I overheard the guards on the other side, loudly arguing among themselves. They have seen me fumbling with the stones. It will not take long for them to figure out how to unlock it.

“We must make haste.” My nephew’s ghost turned into a dim light and boldly drifted forward, telling me to follow. Having the advantage of being able to see where I was going, I quickly found the right way through the dark maze. One more turn and the entrance would reveal itself, but as we turned the corner, a blind wall appeared, blocking our way.

I slammed my fist on the wet stones. "No, no, no!" I shouted at the unyielding structure. "This can’t be!” I shut my eyes and prayed to god that the opening would somehow magically reappear, but the wall remained forbiddingly solid.

“Maybe you took a wrong turn. Or you remembered it wrong.” My little nephew tried.

“No I didn’t! I used to sneak in and out of the palace through this passageway almost every single day. I am certain it was here. Right here!” I ran my fingers through the tangles of my hair in desperation while backing away from the wall. “They’ve must changed it. Margaret, she must have done this! Moved the walls around with her devil’s witchcraft.”

“Uncle, that sounds mad.” My nephew remarked in a small voice.

“Margaret, do you hear me?” I yelled. I threw my head back and looked up at the dark vaulted ceiling, twirling around in search for her shadow. “Are you here? Come out you wicked old hag! Stop tormenting me!”

“Margaret is not here uncle. Get your wits together. We need to leave. Go back the we came and find another way.”

Letting out a cry of frustration and cursing under my breath, I turned around when voices came from the other end of the tunnel. A flicking of torchlight appeared, approaching fast. Finding myself cornered in a dead end, I dropped down on my knees in despair. As the armed men came closer, I gritted my teeth and tightened my grip around my sword.

Henry’s men will not take me alive.

 


	5. Chapter 3: Greybeard and Audemar

**1.1**

**La Trappe, 1460**

Relative to what was to come afterwards, the first period directly after Lucifer’s revelation could be considered to be quite tame. Of course, his Cistercian brothers were not particularly charmed by his new ways. The novice had started to steal food from the kitchen, did not share or participate in any of the communal activities, skipped every mass, and neglected his chores, in that he really did not bother doing any of them at all. Although his behavior sparked outrage and calls for punishment, it remained difficult for the monks to correct their youngest recruit, particularly since scolding in silence was never going to be very effective for someone like Lucifer, who simply turned and looked the other way. Physical punishment was also out of the question: If one of the brethren so much as raised a cane at him, he simply snatched it away from his attacker without so much as breaking into a sweat and used it to give the other a good thrashing on the backside before sending him out with his buttocks inflamed. These actions soon ensured that nobody in the monastery dared to even wag a finger in his direction, leaving the fallen angel to continue to go and do wherever and whatever he pleased.

For the first couple of years, this style of life suited Lucifer rather well. He busied himself with seducing the finer specimen of the religious clique, taking a string of lovers for his pleasure. His current incarnation was not particularly handsome, at least not in the traditional angelic sort of way, but he had a manner of composing himself, a way of movement, that the mortals found irresistible. A flicker of his hooded eyes, a lingering stare, or the shadow of a smile that played in the corners of his lips could seduce and lure even the most god-fearing man into his bedchamber. He particular enjoyed the smoothness of the virginal bodies of the younger men, who stiffened under his first touch, but melted like butter when he entered them, a beautiful softening of limbs and flesh, while his hands burnt hot on their clenching buttocks.

He also loved the way they repented afterward, all lamenting tears for their forbidden transgression, too ashamed to even pray to his father for forgiveness. Often, the psychological torment became so great that they began to harm themselves, and they transformed into a scarred mess of self-flagellation, exhibiting such exquisite fragility that it made Lucifer desire them even more, and what he wants, he always gets. This destructive cycle continued until his victims became so mad with repentance that they actively started to seek self-destruction, at which point Lucifer would simply move on to his next target, finding this particular phase in the relationship more bothersome than enjoyable.

The cemetery outside the monastery (suicides were not allowed to be buried in holy ground) was almost bursting with the remains of many failed monks, when Lucifer finally decided that he had enough. It wasn't so much that he had gotten tired of shagging naive religious souls, but surely his newly acquired freedom had to be more meaningful than just these daily tumbles between the bed sheets. The real problem with being free, he mused, was that there were so many different possibilities, but no-one there to tell you which goal was the most meaningful to pursuit. Once, all he had to do was to follow the orders of his father, and later during the rebellion, it was his own boundless ambitions that guided his actions. Once incarcerated, the task at hand was mainly to not go mad and figure out a way to escape his confinements. But now…what should he aim for now?

What else was there to do except for pestering these beautiful misguided souls?

The thought that he should venture out and go look for Gahmiel came up in his mind. Only, to what purpose? His dark winged brother had been responsible for his accidental release. If Gahmiel was still alive, no doubt the other hosts would have talked him into doing the noble thing by now, which was to come to earth and find Lucifer to atone for his sins. Seeking out “the caring one” was basically an invitation to get himself locked up again inside that cursed box. Not much of a fun prospect, considering that eternity was a frightening long time to spend in solitary confinement.

No…there must be more purpose to his current existence than being hunted down by his heavenly brothers.

The answer to his existential crisis came to him one day when he was going through the many books that were at his disposal in the monastery’s library. Lucifer loved reading. The thick mildewed volumes he found on the shelves in the vaulted chambers were an excellent source of information, providing him insight into the collective mind of mankind. Before he came to earth, he had little interest in the lives of these mortals. Now that he was forced to live among them, and experienced their messy whirlwind of emotions at first hand, he could not help himself from being captivated. He wanted to understand them. He wanted to know what made them do the things they did. Unsurprisingly, works of history were his favorite, but he also read many religious texts. They provided him with a form of light entertainment, for he could not believe how much nonsense had been written on the subjects of god, angels and heaven alone. Most of the existing accounts appeared so comical, and were frequently so outright wrong in interpretation that he often found himself laughing out loud with tears of mirth rolling down his cheeks while ignoring the funny looks the other monks were giving him.

It was however, in these same books that he finally found his calling.

When Lucifer first came across the notion of hell in a 11th century text of a long dead author, it had amused and stupefied him as much as a donkey’s ass that shot out golden coins would a crowd of beggars. The humans absolutely did not understand their god. His father had too much love for his creations, and his mercy was too boundless to ever be capable to create such a horrible place. It was men alone who had dreamed up this nightmare realm of eternal torment, possibly only with the intention to scare his fellow humans into religious submission. In truth, when mortals died, they went to rest in a dreamless sleep. Some who were particularly restless or vengeful remained on earth as ghosts, but there was no judgment on their lives in the spirit world that would determine their soul’s final destination.

Or more simply put, there was no hell. It didn’t exist.

But…as the days progressed and he learned more about this subject, Lucifer started to wonder, why shouldn’t it exist?

He started to play with the idea of such a place. Following the popular narrative, he was the ruler of hell, its lord and master. The notion of gathering souls into a realm between realities and occupying it with fallen angels, which the mortals called demons, to act out punishments on these deceased sinners, slowly grew on him. The way he saw it, the devil had a true purpose in hell. He was there to facilitate the deceased in their afterlives, to give these desperate lost souls a chance to torture, maim and starve themselves to salvation, to burn and purge their sins away so that they would learn to forgive themselves and find peace.

If anything his prolonged imprisonment had taught him was that without darkness, there was no true appreciation for the splendor of light.   

It took a few months for the idea to seed, ripen and to bear fruit. When he finally decided to leave the monastery, he had his whole plan in place. He was cheerful the day he packed his bags and stepped through the monastery’s gates, never to come back. A grand vision had unfolded in front of Lucifer’s eyes, one in which he had finally found a purpose for his existence. His destiny was not to be under the rule of god, but to be the master of a domain that was parallel to his father’s creation.

As the church bells of the monastery rang again to summon the others to mass, Lucifer hastened his pace and took to the road that led to the French coast.

 

**1.2**

I was cornered in a dead end of the hidden palace tunnels with the king's guard fast approaching when I picked up the soft murmur of streaming water, coming from below my feet. I lowered myself and pressed my ear on the ground. For a moment, the only sound I heard was my own thumping heart, but then, the noise returned, the splashing of water rushing over wet stones.

They didn’t block the sewer exit. They had moved it underground.

I gestured to my nephew to come closer so he could shine his light over the damp floor. While the heavy footsteps of the armed guards echoed down the tunnel towards us, I rushed to swipe clean the muddy surface, and soon revealed a wooden lid that closed off the entrance to the sewers below. There was no handle for lifting, and the gap between the lid and the stone border was too narrow for my fingers to get a good grip. Then I remembered my sword. I stuck it in the narrow gap and used it as a leverage to lift the heavy structure. It worked, and a deep dark opening was revealed, which seemed to be absolutely bottomless. Holding in my breath, I jumped into the pit, just as the first men came close enough to strike out with their lances.

Many feet below, I dropped into a stream of stinking sludge and was immediately swept away by a fast current. It carried me, half drowning and struggling to stay afloat, out of the dark tunnels and into the wide waters of the river Thames.

 

**1.3**

“Is he dead?” A voice whispered.

“How should I know? He certainly looks dead.” A kick in the side followed, stirring me awake. I coughed and retched up the water that was locked in my lungs. Gasping for air, I opened my eyes and blinked at the harsh light that seemed to engulf the entire world. I was half expecting that my two nephews were meddling with me again. Instead, the pockmarked face of a middle-aged greybeard was staring down at me. I found myself washed up at the muddy banks of the river, seagulls and crows circling high above my head.

“Oy, not dead then.”

Alarmed, I reached for my sword, but before I could take it, the pockmarked man stepped on my hand. “Feisty one, considering he must have swallowed up half of the Thames.” He remarked with a grin. He leaned forward, steadily putting on more pressure till my fingerbones cracked and I let out a harsh cry.

“God, look at him!” His companion was gaping at my withered limb. He picked up my sword and handed it over to the greybeard. “ It’s like his arm has been gnawed at by rats.”

“Diseased little bugger.” Greybeard muttered, and kicked me again in the stomach. As I retched up more water and struggled to turn on my belly in anticipation of another painful blow, he used my sword to cut open my tattered shirt, revealing my deformities.

“You’re a real monster, aren’t you?” The greybeard gasped, staring at the vile lump on my back in more amazement then shock. “I thought we were lucky today to stumble upon a rich corpse." He continued. Meanwhile, his companion was visibly more repulsed by the sight. He spat on the muddy ground in disgust, and hurriedly made a cross sign in the air to ward off whatever evil he thought he had encountered.

Greybeard knelt down to take a better look at my bulge, strangely fascinated by this cruel joke of nature that had marked me my entire life. Unfortunately, all you have with you that is of any value is this rusty old sword. Also, you have proved to be not much of a corpse.” He added. The way he studied me as if I was a rare specimen to an eager collector of dead things frightened me. I could see by the deep wrinkles on his forehead that the wheels inside were spinning.  

“Now normally, under these circumstances, my companion and I just act like good Christians." He continued with a sigh in the most casual tone. "We dispatch the poor buggers before they can run off to the city guards and get us into all sorts of trouble.” He pointed the blade at the ugly protrusion at the side of my ribcage, then trailed it down over the whole length of my wretched arm.

“This time however, I think we should rather keep you alive.” He flashed me a grin that made my blood run cold before he turned to his companion. “Audemar, could you lend me a hand?”

The other man produced a set of rusty chains and cuffs when he approached. Realizing what they were about to do, I struggled to get free, only to receive several blows on my head that painfully splintered the cartilage in my nose and sent my vision into a violent spin. Too dazed to fight back, I let them put the cuffs around my wrists and drag me to the back of their cart like a limp ragged doll. 

“Are you sure about this?” Audemar inquired. “One look at him and the little ones are going to wet themselves. Their mothers are going to complain.”

“If he doesn’t make us any coins, we slit his throat and dump him back into the river.” Greybeard replied while he helped hoisting me up the vehicle. There he secured the chains to a bolt lodged in the side of wagon. “Don’t worry, we are not going to waste bread on him if he doesn’t make his keep.” Greybeard added as he climbed onto the front seat of the two span.

“Ha! That’s what you said last time we had that stupid dwarf.” Audemar commented as he sat himself next to Greybeard.

“Dwarfs are common." Greybeard scoffed. "You can find them in any brothel and alehouse nowadays. Just like jingling fools and dancing bears. Cheap entertainment for a bit of loose change, that all what you get for them. No, this one is different.” Greybeard looked back at me cowering in the corner and flashed me another toothy grin. “Besides, entertaining peasants was not exactly what I had in mind for him.”

Taking hold of the reigns, Audemar struck the horses, and the whole cart started to move.

 

**1.4**

The stagnant air in the fighting pit was thick with the stench of piss and sweat. As I was dragged out into the open circular area by the chains fastened onto the iron dog collar around my neck, the straw on the floor was so wet with blood that I almost lost my footing. Above me came the loud jeers of a drunken, blood-thirsting crowd. Lord Northumberland’s men were merrily wasting their pay on ale and whores, and were in need of bloody entertainment. Stark against the grey northern sky, the proud banners of Bamburgh castle fluttered against the blowing wind.   

“Look at that ugly bastard!” One of the men yelled at Greybeard and Audemar, who I found amidst the packed group. “Where did you get that monster from? Did you cut it from the womb of a whore who had been ravaged by a deformed hog?” The crowd burst into boisterous laughter, some of them flung their empty goblets down the pit, aiming for my head.

“Watch out hog breed!" They informed me. "The kennel master’s dogs are starving! They are going to rip you apart! They are going to enjoy hunting you down!”

Pressing my back against the wall, I watched with dread how two hounds, both the size of grown wolfs, threw themselves on a dying dog. The largest bit down so hard on the dog’s belly that its guts spilled out, flinging drops of blood in the air as it shook its victim. The other, taking hold of the jaw, attacked so furiously that he ripped it clean from the skull. The crunch of the bones between the sharp teeth turned up bile from my stomach. I bend over and heaved dryly while the circle of drunkards above cheered at the sight of this bloody spectacle. Winners were proclaimed and coins were exchanged, most of ended up in the kennel master’s hand.

“Come on!” The excited crowd yelled. “Get rid of it! Get on with the next fight!”

Four men were needed to pull back the two murderous hounds and drag them off by their chains. Whatever remained of the dead dog was taken away from the pit, leaving the starving beasts without their price.

“Get him closer! Bring him to the middle of the pit. The men on this side can’t see a thing!” The kennel master yelled, keen to make a good show of it.

Greybeard, who was standing on one side of the circular pit, jerked hard on the end my chains. I clumsily stumbled forward like a newborn fawn, falling over myself and landing hard on my hands and knees. With long strands of my hair dangling in front of my eyes, I did not see in time that one of the beast had launched itself at me. It grabbed my leg and pulled me away over the wet floor, his teeth sinking all the way down into bone. Crying out in agony, and acting on mindless instincts, I kicked the beast in its soft belly, sending it flying backwards. As I trashed away from the snapping teeth of the other hound, Audemar pulled on the other end of my chains till the strain allowed me no more movement in any other direction. Terrified, I hunched down as both hounds we set lose. Fearing that they would do the same to me as with the other dog, I tried to hold up my good arm to shield off my face, and turned my stomach away from their ferocious attacks. The larger hound grabbed my arm and cut it open with its razor teeth. The second went for the deformed lump on my back, tearing at it with its claws and teeth till the white of my rib bones shone through.

“Come on then you coward, get up! Get up, and fight you deformed hog! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Another goblet was flung at me and landed within my reach. I grabbed it with my shriveled hand and smashed it into pieces on the skull of the hound that clung onto my other arm. Surprised by the suddenness of the attack, it let go with a angry howl. With both my hands now free, I grabbed the chains of the smaller hound that had dug its claws into my back, wrapped it around its short sinewy neck and tightened it, praying to God that I could choke it dead before its jaws could get to me.

Meanwhile, the first dog was coming back, its white-rimmed eyes was glazed over with a mad ferocity. Just when it launched itself at me, I managed to get the smaller one off my back and swung it by the chains at the other canine. The two beasts crashed into each-other and landed on their backs with their paws in the air.

The larger was about to roll back up, but I was faster on my feet. I picked up a piece of broken shard and stabbed it into the beast’s maul. It punctured the roof of its mouth, sending the dog howling. It crawled away in agony.

The other was still lying on the ground. Maddened by the pain and deranged with fear, I sank my teeth into its throat and ripped through its jugular before it could get to mine. As I tore away strips of flesh, blood pumped out and painted a crimson mask on face. It turned me into a savage beast, and I continued to tear the animal apart, filling my mouth with soft chewy flesh while I tasted the metallic tang of its warm blood on my tongue.

It wasn’t till the dog master’s men started to beat me with sticks that I crawled into a corner, backing away far enough for them to get to the dying animal.

“What did I tell you?” Greybeard exclaimed triumphantly after the fight was over. He slapped Audemar on his shoulder. “Our monster is a champion!”

“That monster of yours is the devil himself!” The kennel master spat as he handed over a fat purse of coins to Greybeard. “He ruined two of my best fighting dogs!”

“Oh come on dog master. It’s not like we didn’t make it easier for your pups. We held him down long enough for them to even go take a long piss at him.” Greybeard mocked. “We cannot help it that your dogs cannot fight.”

“We do thank you for feeding him for us though.” Audemar taunted. “If you have anymore of your dead animals at your disposal, we are more than happy to take it from your hands.”

“Curse you both for bringing him here.” The kennel master hissed, boiling over with anger and indignation. “I bid you, leave by the first rays of the morning and never come back! Take that vile creature with you!” As he turned to leave, he added. “You should dispatch it. That deformed demon is an abomination. To allow it to exist is an offence to God!”

“You hear that.” Audemar told me after the dog master had left the camp. He kicked the bars of my cage with tip of his boot to get my attention. “The old dog breeder commands us to be rid of you.”

“The old man is a sore loser. I am not going to dispatch the hog who finds me these fine bags of golden coins.” Greybeard stooped down and peered through the bars. “No matter how hideous he is.”

I was sitting in the cage with my knees drawn up against my chest, shivering of pain and exhaustion. Crusted blood covered the many slashes and bite marks on my naked, filth caked body. The most hideous wounds on my hump and limbs were still open and gushed out slow trickles of blood.

“You think we need to do so something about those nasty cuts?” Audemar asked.

Greybeard shook his shoulders. “It will heal, just like the last time. Just don’t forget to give him something for supper tonight. It seems wrong to starve him now that he had made us a pleasant windfall.”

 

**1.5**

That night, Audemar left me a bowl of water and some scraps from their supper. Although I was starved and dying of thirst, I did not take it. My shattered spirit seemed to have fled, leaving only my body to its cursed fate. I could not be motivated to perform any act that would fulfill even my most dire of needs.

For what was the point of it all?

Why quench the thirst in my parched throat or fill my empty stomach, just to keep myself alive to experience yet another day of horror and shame?

Most who once loved me were long dead and buried for that mistake. The ones who knew me and survived would refuse to speak my name, or it would only be with hateful scorn or in the same breath to seal a curse. Margaret had not resurrected a dead king, but a hollow shell. I had become a helpless animal trapped in a series of cruel misadventures. The men at the fighting pits, who jeered and spat at me, and wished to see me slaughtered by the dogs, they thought of me as a savage monster. My captors, who had taught me, like strict masters a feral dog with sticks and endless beatings, to fight on their command, and to beg for the scraps from their tables, they looked at me and see but a vile monster that they have caged for their abuse and exploitation.

The more the world treated me in these ways, the more I forgot that I was human, and the more my conscience told me that it was just.

Richard of York’s life was over.

All that was left, was my own wretched self.

And I, who was seen by the whole world as a mindless vicious animal, should act like one.

Finally giving in to the thirst, this worthless and base animal crawled to the bowl, bowed its head and lapped up the liquid. Dried blood dissolved in my mouth. Salted tears streaked down my filthy cheeks and dripped into the water below.

A speckle of light appeared, drifting in the dark on the other side of the bars.

“Uncle.”

Realizing who it was who had come to visit me, I turned away, hiding myself in shame.

“Uncle.” My little nephew Richard spoke again. I crawled further back into the shadows, away from the light.

“Leave me alone.” I said in a shivering voice. “Have I not endured enough?”

“I am not here to harm you." The light changed and took human form as it passed through the bars. "I saw what those men did to you. I am truly sorry.”

“I don’t deserve your pity.” I replied bitterly.

“My mother once told me that every men on this earth deserves mercy." There was such kindness in his voice that it shamed me even more. "We’re all God’s creatures.”

“Not me.” I shook my head, and hid my gaze behind my long straggly strands of hair. “I am not a creature of God.”

In my mind’s eye I saw the men who I had sent out to the Tower, creeping up the winding staircase to my brother Edward's children, who I had sworn to love and protect. In stead, I had summoned these two dark shadows that edged over their peaceful sleeping faces, and muffled their cries when the assassin's hands stopped them from breathing. I _murdered_ them. I had bought death to two innocent young lives who had never truly injured me. How could this misery I am now in, _not_ be my rightful punishment?

“Why are you pitying me.” I dragged in ragged breaths as his ghostly presence continued to awake my heavy conscience. “Don’t you see? These men are entitled to treat me as they do. I deserve all of this. I am unworthy of any kindness.” I bowed my shoulder and hung my head low. “I don’t deserve your kindness.” I muttered, breaking down in tears. “I beg you. Please, don’t be kind to me.”

The boy reached out and put his hand on my shivering skeletal frame.

“My poor confused uncle.” My nephew whispered in my ear. “They have not let you sleep for days now, have they?” He gently cradled my head his lap. “You’re tired. You’re hurt. Close your eyes. Rest. I shall stay by your side, and no bad dreams will come to you tonight.”

“Rest uncle.”

“Rest.”

 

 


	6. Chapter 4: Kiss the girl

 

**1.1**

The great hall of our ancestral home was festively decorated with holly and evergreens. Candles were lit in every dark corner to cast out the winter gloom, and a band of musicians played a string of well-liked merry tunes. It was the first day of Christmas, and my father had invited all the nobles of his land to come and celebrate our savior’s birth. The long wooden table that could sit more than 50 was decked with a feast of rich meats, dried fruit, fresh bread, and good strong wine. My father, being in a cheerful mood, had allowed me to sit with the adults, and my sweet mother had sneaked in a spoon of honey in my cup to make the wine more palatable, knowing I disliked the bitter taste.   

“Richard.” My oldest brother Edward called out as he rushed over with my brother Clarence to my seat. “We’re playing kiss and seek. Come and join us.”

“What is kiss and seek?” I asked, hopping along behind them while trying to catch up with their pace. I was excited to join my brothers. Edward was by now 15 and Clarence 13 years of age. Both were often occupied with all sorts of important things that young men apparently needed to learn to pass into full adulthood, and had little time for horseplay with their younger sibling.

“It’s like hide and seek, but with girls.” Edward replied, giving me a wink.

“Why do we need to play with the girls?” I asked, skewing up my face. “They are rubbish with swordplay and cry when you play too rough with them. Can't it be just the three of us?”

“I think our Richard is perhaps still too young for this game.” Clarence commented.

“Nonsense, he is only too young if he didn’t have two wiser and older brothers to watch over him. He wrapped an arm over my shoulder and punched me in the chest playfully. “Don’t worry little brother, just do as we do and I promise it will be fun.”

We entered the antechamber where we were greeted by the young daughters and sons of my father’s kinsmen and serving nobles. Their ages ranged between that of mine and Edwards. They were all dressed in their finest cloth and enjoyed a most cheerful mood. Edward and Clarence bowed gallantly at the girls who were standing in a group away from the lads. They responded with timid giggles among themselves. The boldest and oldest among them threw flirtatious looks at Edward who, as my mother often proudly proclaimed to others, was fast blossoming into a handsome youngster.

“Right, now we are all here, let’s get started.” Edward said rubbing in his hands and looking at the group. “Who is first?”

There came more nervous laughter from the young ladies, while the lads good-humoredly teased eachother, pushing the most reluctant candidates forward.

“May I go first?” A willowy figure stepped up to him. Her large doe-like eyes captured Edward’s gaze for a moment. Young Isabel Neville was as beautiful as she was graceful, and many of the girls looked upon her boldness with a visible touch of envy.

“Certainly.” Edward replied. A servant handed him a red ribbon. “May I?”

Isabel nodded, flashing a smile at him as he carefully secured the blindfold. I noticed that when his fingers touched her swanlike neck by chance, she did not recoil, and after a short while, pink blushes started to appear on her snowy skin.

“What is the purpose of this strange game?” I asked Clarence, who was like me, somehow captivated by the scene. “Why is she blindfolded?”

“Isabel has to chase us without seeing us. You should stay away from her if you don’t want to get caught.”

What happens when she catches me?”

“As it is Isabel, I would say, it will be one of the luckiest thing that could ever happen to you, my little brother.” He smirked, and gave me a sudden push so I lurched forward in her direction.

Meanwhile, Edward had taken Isabel by her hands and spun her around several times. “Count to ten before you start, and no peeking!” He let go of her and the young girl swayed a little on her feet. Disorientated but wearing a merry smile on her face she stretched out her hands and tentatively took tiny steps in the direction of her sniggering playmates. “Where are you all? It’s no fun if you don’t make any noise. How am I to find you like this?”

“Here I am!” One of the older boys yelled cheerfully. “Catch me Isabel. I am yours!”

“No, take me!” another said, pushing forward towards her. “I am right here. Try to catch me my sweet lady!”

But Isabel ignored them all. Instead, she moved closer where she had last seen Edward, waving her hands in front of her as she turned her head to listen.

“He’s is behind you Isabel!” Her lady friends cried out. They shrieked with great excitement as she turned on their instructions. “Edward is right behind you!”

Edward jumped backwards just in time to not let Isabel’s grasp on to him. Moving on his toes, he crept in a semicircle towards me and Clarence, who chuckled at the ridiculous sight of our brother being hunted like a deer in the woods.

“Where did he go now?” Isabel asked.

“He’s there near the window, five steps to your left. He’s standing next to Clarence!” Her friends replied.

“Seems like Isabel has made up her mind who to hunt, and is rather stubborn about it.” Clarence said in a loud voice, given away his exact position. Edward, knowing that he did this on purpose, slapped him on his shoulder and shushed. Meanwhile, Isabel had hastened her steps and was so close and held her arms so wide that the three of us, all with our backs against the window, could not easily escape.

“I think you’re about to be hooked like a fish onto dry land, by dear brother.” Clarence chuckled, pushing Edward forward.

“Not while I am still swimming outside the catcher’s netting.” Edward remarked, shoving back.

“Or maybe, the lady will be happy with a smaller catch.” With a push in the back by Clarence, I was launched forward, and fell right into the open arms of Isabel.

Startled and very much paralyzed with dread, I let her tighten her embrace, locking her hands behind the small of my back. “Got you now Edward.” She said with a radiant smile. “See, you’re not that difficult to find.”

Her friends covered their mouths in shock, and were about to say something when Edward turned to them and put his fingers on his lips, urging them to hold their tongue.

Isabel moved closer to me. I could smell her sweet perfume, a scent of roses that mixed with her sweat and body warmth into a concoction that bound my senses into a soft intoxicated state. My heart rate quickened and my throat felt dry. I looked urgently at my two brothers, and found Clarence pressing his lips tightly together, trying very hard not to laugh. Edward drew up his eyebrows and just stared back at me with a playful smirk on his face.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me, my lord?” Isabel finally asked. Pink blushes bloomed on her cheeks and she wet her soft rose petal lips in anticipation. I could feel her rushing heartbeat resonate in her bosom and her breath rising and falling in her chest, filling my head with so much of her presence that the whole world seemed to dissolve.

I looked once more at Richard for guidance. He gestured and mouthed silently that I should indeed give Isabel what she requested.

I leaned forward, and with my good hand gently caressed that flawless cheek. I pressed my lips on hers, and felt the softness of that touch melting away all of my doubts and fears, bringing in me a state of such complete happiness that I prayed it would never end. She leaned into me, placing her soft hand on my beating heart for a moment, than pulled back, parting our connection with a satisfied smile.

“That was wonderful.” Isabel told me softly. She fumbled hastily to unfasten the knots of her blindfold. “That was one of the sweetest kisses I ever had…”

Her eyes widened in shock when she finally saw who was standing before her. Horrified, she let go of me and backed away, her soft and kind expression shifting into that of a most aggrieved hard-faced queen. Clarence and the others burst in a loud fit of laughter as Isabel kept looking at me, her face skewed up in disgust. She wiped her fingers across her lips, as if to frantically trying to remove poison.

“It was you?” She cried, tears brimming in her eyes, she swept a scornful look at her entourage. “Why didn’t anyone say something?”

“My lord did not want us to.” One of her friends replied timidly.

The wronged maiden cast an infuriated look at my brother.

“Oh come on it’s just a game Isabel.” Edward shrugged and tried to reconcile her with an appeasing smile, even though he had laughed at her expense with all the others. “Surely no harm has been done by kissing my little brother.”

“Yes, I don’t understand why she is so upset.” Clarence added. “Warwick’s oldest has caught herself a fine young York lord. Wasn’t that what she was so ambitiously after?”

My brother’s words led to another round of mocking laughter. Humiliated, she buried her face in her hands and started weeping hot tears.

Not knowing what to do, and not much understanding why I was the cause of her great distress, I tried to console her.

“My sweet lady, I beg you don’t weep. I didn’t mean to make the others laugh at you.”

“Get away from me!” She shouted, anger rising in her voice. “You foul disgusting little toad! You made me look like a fool!” She then turned and fled the room, leaving me standing alone in the center of the amused crowd.

“Never mind her Richard.” Edward said, he came to me and slapped my back, treating this all like it was an innocent jest. “Everyone knows that Isabel Neville can be a hateful she-dragon when she does not get her ways. Let us continue with our game. Who’s next?”

“Maybe Richard wants to take a turn.” Clarence taunted. “But before we start, let me ask the servants to block off the exits before all the maidens try to flee out of this room.”

“Clarence." Edward sighed. "I beg of you, hold your not so clever to-“

Before Edward could finish his sentence, I pushed past my two brothers and ran out of the chamber. With every step, I felt my heart sinking deeper and deeper into a pit that I did not know existed before. Isabel’s words rang in my ears and stabbed me with countless holes that made the memory of her kiss now taste like bitter bile. I fled out into the garden, and huddled down among the roots of the ancient oaktree that grew below the east tower, hiding myself from the scorn and teasing of all the others. It was a cold Christmas day, and as evening fell the first snow of the season started to drift down, covering everything in a thin blanked of icy down.

Later, I heard my brothers call out my name as they searched for me by torchlight with a group of my father’s servants. They did not find me, nor did I wish to be found by any of them. After a while, they gave up, and returned to the feast.

Night came and revealed a clear pitch-black sky, littered with pinpoint stars. The air became frosty and silent. Then came crackling footsteps in the snow. It was followed by a golden flickering beam, that reflected the shine of a million tiny ice crystals drifting in the wind.

“My lord, are you here?”

I squinted my eyes against the bright light cast by the oil lamp that shone in my face. It was held by a young woman, dressed in a long black cloak trimmed with black feathers. A heavy hood threw a long shadow over features.

“Your brothers lord Edward and Clarence are looking for you. So are your father’s men.” Her voice was kind, but unfamiliar to me.

“Who are you?” I asked, realizing that I did not recognizing her as one of our household.

“I am a servant of lady Neville. Your brother Edward is very worried. He stopped the games and bid us all to go look for you.”

“Leave me alone, and tell my brother that I am not coming.” I replied stubbornly. “Tell him to continue his merry games and just pretend he does not have another brother.”

The woman lowered her lamp and to my surprise, took my hand. “You’re freezing." She said, rubbing over my stiff fingers "You should go back inside. You’ve been out far too long.”

“Don’t touch me.” I sneered, and snatched back my hand. “Are you deaf? I order you to leave me be. Go away!”

Disobeying my commands, she looked back at me in silence, bright eyes shining from underneath that hooded shadow.

“You should not take to heart what just happened in there.” She finally said.

“They all laughed at me. She called me an ugly toad.” I replied, turning my face away from her.

“Words can do no harm if you don’t let them.”

“How would you know? You’re just a servant.”

Instead of being deterred by my rudeness, she folded her long dress between her legs and huddled down beside me between the tangle of roots.

“I do know. You know why? I have been serving my lady for a good few years now. Lady Neville is as shallow as she is beautiful. She believes that the loveliness she sees in her reflection mirrors the exquisiteness of a better soul. And as she thinks like this, she will only see others like her.”

“Like my brother Edward you mean.” I bowed my head. “She hates me. She thinks I am hideous. I look like a monster, so I must be rotten as well.”

“You are not a monster.” She said softly. “Isabel is wrong. A man could look like the purest of angels, but hide in him the most evil of thoughts."

“That is not what my father’s priest says. He tells us our appearance is exactly how God sees and has made us.” I told her, recalling not without resentment, how the awful old man always made me to say extra long prayers, so that I would spend hours on my knees in the chapel in an attempt to save my most imperfect soul.

“Then your priest is also wrong.” She scooped up a ball of snow. “Look.” She placed the snowball in my hands and blew her warm breath over it. The snow melted, revealing an ugly black pod with dried blunt spikes curling all around it.

“The way you look has nothing to do with what is inside.” She folded her hands over mine and gently, she blew over it for a second time. The black pod started to shimmer like an amber in a dying fire. The shine grew and grew till it became bright orange. The pod split open and out grew a strong vine adorned with golden thorns and leaves. It formed a large bud at the end, which sprang open, revealing a large dazzling bloom with petals made of countless butterflies, each with an incredible array of color. She blew once more, and the butterfly petals fluttered away into the air, fading and shrinking till it became a drift of snow. When I looked again, the magical bloom was gone.

“You see?” She told me. “You have a good heart Richard, and you’re still young. Don’t let the unkind words of others weigh it down and embitter it so soon.”

She stood up and brushed the snow from her dress, then held out her hand to me.

“Shall we go back, Richard?”

 

**1.2**

I woke with the snow drifting into my dirty cage. It had formed thin lines of powdery white on the wooden bars. The cart was moving in a jolting fashion, shaking the cage from side to side. Disorientated and with my throat parched, I scraped off with my fingers the thin layer of snow and sucked the melting liquid into my mouth. The canvas that Audemar had spanned over the top of my cage had many holes, and failed to provide enough shelter. Shivering in my thin rags with the world spinning in front of my eyes, I pulled myself up against the bars to peer outside. A winter landscape filled with barren trees, their many branches heavy with snowfall, stretched out before my eyes as far as I could see. Nothing else seemed to exist except for this repetitive scene of wood and ice.

Stronger jolts followed as the cart drove over a series of potholes. I landed back on the floor. Too weakened to even grab hold on to something, I rolled around like a pebble in a shoe, retching as nausea took hold.

“You’re not well uncle.”

“My little nephew.” I was happy to be visited by him again. During these long months of torment, my one time avenging ghost had slowly become a great comfort to me. “I think I have a fever.” I murmured.

“You’re burning up.”

“My father was holding a Christmas feast in the great hall. Everyone was there. Your father Edward was there, and your uncle Clarence. Do you remember him or were you still too young?”

“Your wounds are infected. It has poisoned your blood.”

“I kissed your aunt Isabel and she was crying. I ran outside to hide in the old oak, it was snowing, just like today.” I swallowed and blinked my eyes several times, but the world remained a mist of vague shapes and distant noises, with only my nephew’s light a somewhat more steady beacon for my senses.

“I saw your father just yet. Where did he go? My sweet nephew, could you please help me look for him? I want to tell him that I am no longer angry with him.”

“You’re delirious. We need to get you somewhere inside, and keep you warm.”

“And Clarence. I need Clarence here too.”

“Uncle, listen. These men need to stop traveling and take care of you. Stay another day on the road like this, and you will die. Do you hear me?”

“They won’t stop. We’ve been moving for ages.” I muttered. “North. North. Always north. Like the wild geese in spring.”

“Do you have any idea where they are heading?”

“Round and round we go.” I whispered to myself, and twirled my head, drawing circles. “Round and round and round.”

“Listen to me, I am going to see where they are taking you. Stay awake while I am gone.”

“No, no don’t go.” A pang of panic stabbed me in my heart. “Don’t leave. I beg you.”

“I will be back soon.” He said determinedly.

The darkness around me became so much more intolerable after that faint light was gone.

 


	7. Chapter 5: The Wolfs

**1.1**

The two men who were sitting on the box seat of the twospan that ventured through the lonely forest road, looked both truly miserable.

“Are you sure you’re holding that map right.” Greybeard commented.

Audemar gave his companion a foul look. “You’re saying I am too stupid to read a map?”

“I am saying that we’ve been traveling up north for four consecutive days now. I haven’t seen a town or castle or even a dilapidated dung farm on the way. We were heading to York from Ravenspur, which should have been a two days ride. Three if we were really slow.” Greybeard paused, fixing his gaze on Audemar.

“And?”

“Do you see the great city of York any where near here?” He waved wildly with his hands. “Or perhaps it’s hidden from our view behind these barren twigs and we are just standing right in front of the city gates?”

“Maybe it’s around the next bend?” Audemar tried.

Greybeard sighed and snatched the scroll from him. “Here.” He scolded, giving him the reigns. “Take this, and let me look at the map.”

To be fair, road maps in the Middle ages were not as clear cut and precise like the ones made today. They often only depicted a straight road on which the landmarks were drawn with a rough estimate of miles scribbled in between. No junctions were indicated. Similarly, the map these two fine gentlemen of enterprising spirit had for guidance, was only showing a straight line between London and the villages and cities of the north. It was up to Greybeard to guess at which exact point during their journey they had diverted.

“Blasted! We should have passed three towns by now if we were still on the right track, but we haven’t seen any of them.” Aggrevated, he crumbled up the scroll and tossed it back into the carriage.

“Could we have missed it?”

Greybeard sucked in air through his nostrils and exhaled slowly, blowing steam.

“Yes, we could have, if we were sodden blind! We took the wrong turn you simpleton! The last time we were on the right track was near Alnwick. That’s a damned three days ride away.”

“Then what, are we going back?”

Greybeard paused for a moment to think.

“How is he?” He nodded with his head at the covered cage in the back of carriage.

Audemar shrugged. “He was still alive this morning, but he made a bloody mess again. I don’t think we should feed him for a while. It’s all coming back out as soon as you put something in. It’s no use.”

“We have to find a local leech to treat him. Otherwise he’s not going to last long.”

“Don’t you think it’s a waste of coins anyway?” Ademar asked.

“What would you otherwise suggest?”

“Oh I don’t know. We could just dump him in a ditch nearby.” His companion opted. “Let the poor bugger die by himself. He has already made us a good profit. We could split the gains between ourselves and head back to the south. Find some nice ladies to spend our money on.”

“If he gets better, we can yet make much more profit.”

“Do you believe so?” Audemar cocked an eyebrow at him. “The current state he’s in I fear not even our good lord Jesus himself could cure him. Admit it, he is one step away from turning into a corpse, and I for one am sick of spending every waking hour on the road like this. To be frank, I would rather stick my nose up the crotch of a syphilis whore than to go smell that disgusting stench that comes from his rotting wounds again.”

Audemar reigned in the horses when they approached a crossroad. At the junction point, amid a growth of young oaks, stood a wooden scaffold. From its sideway pole dangled a rusty metal cage no larger than a coffin. Locked inside, sat in upright position, the stiff frozen skeletal remains of a man. His bony legs and feet were dangling out from the bottom of the cage, and swung lightly in the cold northern breeze. It was a most gruesome sight, to which both men did not wish to pay too much attention. When the cart came to a full stop, they contemplated their options. To the east, there was a narrower pathway diverting from the main road that meandered up the slopes.

“Which way now?” Greybeard finally asked, breaking the silence.

“I say we stick to this road. Go straight on.”

“We have been on this blasted road for three days. We haven’t seen any recognizable landmarks.”

Audemar pointed out the unlucky dead man. “I would call that a landmark. They usually hang criminals close to villages to scare off thieves and cutthroats from coming in. We should be near one.

“Yes, but it doesn’t mean that the village is straight ahead of us, does it?”

The wind suddenly picked up and wildly rocked the hangman’s cage, making the frozen bones rattle against the rusted bars.

“Can we make a decision with a bit more haste? I don’t fancy staying here for very long.” Audemar muttered, spooked by the scene.

“It’s just a dead man in a cage.” Greybeard snorted. “As you have so cleverly pointed out, we have one soon enough in the back of our cart. I say we pick the narrow road east.”

“And I say we stay on the main road. That mountain path looks dangerous. It’s much narrower and steeper. Our carriage could slip.”

“I am not going to let you decide. You’ve chosen the wrong turn last time. That’s why we are in this sodden mess in the first place.”

“I did not…”

A strong sudden burst of wind swept the snow from the branches and rocked the hanging cage so violently that it made the ropes that held it snap. The cage with the skeleton swung to the ground, bones rattling loudly as it rolled down hill. It came to a halt, right in the middle of the main road.

“Don’t look so startled, you wet infant.” Greybeard commented, noticing the paleness on his companion’s face. “That was just the wind.”

Audemar opened and closed his mouth, mimicking a fish on dry land, he pointed with a trembling hand at the unnatural sight in front. The cage with the skeleton slowly rose upright, emitting a faint ghostly light. The jaw of the skull dropped open. Then it began to snap open and shut repeatedly, chattering its teeth as if it had a furious hunger to eat the living.

“Lord save us.” Greybeard muttered, his voice muted in shock.

“It’s the ghost of the villain hanged!” Audemar cried out. “He is coming to for the unfortunate travelers who have lost their ways.”

Greybeard rushed to take over the reigns with shaking hands. “This place is cursed! This road is cursed! We have to get away from here!"

He struck the horses hard. The carriage wheeled around in such haste that it almost keeled over, and with great speed, the horses bolted up the narrow winding side road.

 

**1.2**

The cart suddenly shook wildly, and I was flung to the back. Landing hard with my stomach pressed against the bars, I heaved up all the fluid what was left inside my stomach, before a second jolt sent me tumbling on my side.

The light of my nephew shone brightly through the canvas that covered my cage. As it passed through, it soon took human form again.

“What’s happening?” I asked frightfully while the violent motion continued, shaking me around in the tiny space if I was set adrift in a wooden box at sea.

“Hold on uncle. I have frightened these men so that they went off the wrong road. They wanted to take you to York, but we are now too far up north to go back.”

“Where are we going?” I pushing my head against my chest, hoping it would steady the whirling inside my head.

“We are heading for a small village nearby. I found it as I searched the area. It’s not far away and we will reach it before nightfall. Uncle? Do you hear me? Don’t fall asleep.“

Feverous and delirious, I shut my eyes to stop my blurring vision from making me sick.

 

**1.3**

The carriage finally stopped, but the swirling inside my head did not.

“We have made it uncle.”

I opened my eyes and saw a dim light doubling, then tripling, and so on, till it had multiplied in my vision to a swarm of tiny dancing lights.

“Where are we?” I murmured, tasting bile in my mouth.

“We have arrived at the village. There will be help soon, you’ll see. Hold courage.”

To my relief, the swarm of confusing lights began to fuse, reducing the number till I saw only two, then 1. The world took some recognizable form again. Still lying on the floor I held my head back to look over my shoulder. Through a gap in the canvas, I saw a row of hovels, small and crooked, leaning into each-other of old age. The windows were boarded up. Large white crosses had been painted across the doors.

“No.” I replied, my heart filling up with dread when I recognized these awful signs from my many travels during my brother’s military campaigns in the long war. “I don’t think there will be.”

“This place is a plague infested hell hole.” I heard Greybeard say, he had dismounted and walked into my view. “Just our luck to ride in here right after dark.”

“Do you think it is completely abandoned?” Audemar asked.

“Not one living soul I’ve seen on the road and streets.” Greybeard answered, looking around with his hands on his hips. “There is no smoke coming from the chimneys. No light shining through the cracks in the doors and shutters.” He kicked at something large that was lying in the mud by the side of the road. “No one to take care of the rotting carcasses of the farm animals. I say everyone is gone, and for a good while too.”

“I don’t want to spend the night here.” Audemar replied, sounding anxious. “Let’s move out of this macabre place. Set up camp back in the woods for tonight.”

Greybeard did not respond but gazed thoughtfully at the boarded hovels, then turned, and looked back at the road from which we came from. He took out his dagger and said; “Not so much haste. There may still be something worthwhile here for us to take.”

“Are you mad? These are houses marked with the plague. The families who once lived here were locked inside by the king’s army to keep the disease from spreading. If we go in there, there is a chance we will get infected too.”

“If those poor buggers inside are still alive, yes then we can get sick, but everyone knows you cannot get the plague from the dead. If so, all the gravediggers whose job is to bury them will all soon be six feet under.”

“I’ve heard plenty of tales in the taverns that gravedigger perish too.”

“Oh a bunch of old wives tales! Everyone knows the plague comes from dirty air that comes from the breath of the sick. Corpses don’t breathe.” Greybeard took a crowbar from the back of the cart and started to pull the boards away from the windows, nail by nail. “Come on, give me a hand, instead of just standing there, acting like a hysterical maid. We could be out of here before midnight if we do this fast!"

Audemar came reluctantly. Both men were busying themselves breaking in, when a sudden thump could be heard, coming from a narrow alleyway between the houses. The two ceased their devil’s work, and looked around for the source of disturbance.

A black shadow suddenly flew out from behind a stack of firewood. Audemar cried out in horror as a monstrous large wolf with a coat as black as midnight and a pair of piercing green eyes took hold of his throat. He kept screaming when the beast clenched his jaw and sent a mist of blood into the air.

“Help me!” He cried out, gargling blood, but his frightful companion had already fled back to the carriage. His final scream died when a second wolf, silver coated and as monstrous as the first, took Audemar’s head inside his maul and bit down, crushing skull.

Having by now scrambled back up the box seat, Greybeard took the reigns and struck the startled horses. I was propelled to the back of the cage as we rushed through the streets at neck-breaking speed.

This rush of movement drew the attention of the two wolves. They abandoned their bloody supper and went in pursuit. As we rushed over the frozen muddy road away from the damned village and into the woods, more wolves appeared, almond eyes shining behind the black trunks, their coats glistening with ice crystals in the pale reflection of a snow moon. Joining the pack in the hunt, they snapped at a flapping corner of the canvas, hanging on to it with their full weight till it ripped open. With the top of my cage now exposed, and the star lit sky flying by above me, I cast my frightened eyes at the front of the carriage.

Six wolves were harassing the horses, biting at their legs and flinging themselves on their hinds to reach their necks. Two others were gaining from the side and made several attempts to jump up the cart. Meanwhile, we reached a track of the road that wound steeply uphill, and became then narrower and narrow, with the corners sharpening with every turn. Greybeard drove too fast. The back wheel hit a fallen branch, and the cart turned on its side with its wheels spinning.

The upturned vehicle slowed down the horses almost to a standstill. The wolf pack made good use of this and attacked. They flung themselves onto the animals’ soft bellies with their sharp claws and teeth.

Greybeard was trapped on the box seat. While he screamed for the lord to save him, one wolf took his leg, another took his left arm, and a third grabbed the right foot. Then the three of them twisted and pulled savagely, each in a different direction, till they ripped him apart.

Frightened out of my mind, I crawled as far away from this horrific scene as my tiny prison allowed, hoping that the beast would have their fill with these kills and let me live. But then the black wolf with the green eyes approached. He pushed his muzzle between the bars and opened his maul wide, but was not able to reach me from all sides as long as I stay in the center. Angry to be kept away from his price, he gnawed ferociously at the wooden bars, pushing the cage away towards a steep drop at the side of the road. As the structure continued to slide over the snow, I observed with growing dread how we were edging closer and closer to the abyss, till the cage was balancing right on the edge. I tried to shift my weight to the front, but I had been starved and did not weigh much, and the beast kept attacking. Worse still, the wooden bars started to dent inward, then splintered, granting the wolf a wide enough gap between them to push his muzzle further inside the cage. He snapped at me, and just missed my face, when the cage tipped and went crashing down the hillside. As it tumbled down it hit several stones, breaking it apart. I was flung out of the wreckage, and kept falling, the snow and the bare bushes in the undergrowth slowing down my speed, till I finally came to a stop on a gentle slope.

I tasted blood and snow on my lips when I raised my head from the frosty ground. The black wolf was standing in front of me, his heavy panting passing steam clouds into the air. Drops of dark crimson dripping from his opened maul onto the pale white of the virgin snow. Too exhausted, too weakened and too much in pain to fight or flee any longer, I shut my eyes and pray to God that it would be quick. I already felt the wolf’s hot breath and the weight of his paws on my back when an arrow shot through the air. It pierced through the creature’s cheek, sending him howling. A second arrow cut was shot and pierced his side.

As the wolf turned, a black-clad figure approached. He was steadily arching a bow while lighting his path with a torch in his hand.

The injured but still infuriated beast came running at him, but the archer remained unnerved, and kept stepping forward with steady pace before shooting another arrow, which went straight between the wolf’s eyes.

The beast collapsed.

More growls and howls came from the surrounding woods. Many pairs of eyes lit up in the dark, drawing narrowing circles around us. The hooded figure waved with his torch to keep the remaining wolfs at bay. From his backpack he took a phial of green liquid, and with it, he douched the sticks he picked up from the forest floor. When he held them in the flames they flared up in violent flames.

“Get away from him, you beasts!” The voice that came from the stranger was light, not like a man’s. He flung the burning sticks at the circling beasts. As soon as the flames hit their coats it immediately caught fire. The blaze became so thick, so fast, that the unfortunate beasts soon resembled open fire braziers, running on stumbling legs. With most of them burning, the wolf pack fled back into the woods, setting fire to the lowest branches on their way to safety.

I was close to losing consciousness when the archer stepped towards me through this strange mirage of burning ice. Just when he removed his hood to reveal his face, my eyes rolled back and darkness claimed me.  

 


	8. Chapter 6: Ophelia

**1.1**

My unconsciousness lifted slowly. It entered a dreamlike state that veiled my sense of reality. Long locks of dark hair dangled down over my cheeks. A woman’s face hovered above mine. A women’s hand, soft and warm, touched my forehead, and cooled it with a damp cloth.

I squinted my eyes at the female form and weakly waved her hand away. Is this Margaret? Am I back in my cell in the king’s dungeons? 

“Are you awake, dog?” The red queen whispered in my ear, sending my heart into a deep dark pit of desperation. “You are just back in time.” She grabbed my left arm and harked her long vulture-like talons through my flesh. “You’re back in time to meet the devil!”

I cried out in pure terror and pulled away from her.

“You’re ailing.” Her voice was light, much younger then Margaret’s. It lacked the undertone of bitter resentment. I gazed at her once more, beads of fevered sweat dripping from my brows, and saw not Margaret, but a woman with a moon-pale face with a set of piercing green eyes, framed by long locks of black hair.

I kept my eyes fixed on her as she lifted my head, brought a cup to my lips and urged me to drink. Struggling, I still managed to take a mouthful before swallowing.

“I know you.” I told her hesitantly. The bitter taste of her brew clung onto my tongue and I sucked on it absentmindedly, while trying hard to stir my memory. I recalled images of a frosty night, one Christmas many years ago. Then the elusive vision was gone and Margaret’s face emerged and fused with that of the younger woman.

“No, not you.” Shaking my head fervently to this most frightful sight. “You’re not Margaret.” I told her, squinting shut my eyes several times in the hope that it would disappear, but the horrible double-faced woman stubbornly remained.

“You should rest.” She said, speaking with two mouths at once. “Sleep. You need to heal.”

 

**1.2**

It took two days for my fever to die down. Another two more for me to be able recognize the world around me again. When finally I woke in the early morning of the fifth day, the sun was shining through a small window by my bedside, revealing the dust that lingered in the stagnant air of a small wooden cabin. The dark-haired woman was sitting with her back turned. She was tending a pot with a sour smelling brew that was boiling over a crackling fire in the fireplace.

I stirred, struggled into an upright position, and ran a trembling hand over my sweaty face.

“You’re awake?” She came to me and laid a hand on my forehead. Her touch was gentle, and cool against my skin. “Fever is completely gone. That’s good news.” She wiped her hand over the folds of her dress, and pushed a cup into my hands.

“Where am I?” I asked her, closing my fingers around the hot cup. It contained the same black liquid that she had given me during my fever.

“You’re a guest in my house. I took you in after I found you in the forest. Drink this before it gets cold.”

Warily, I did as I was told. Now that I was more awake and my senses have returned to me, the liquid seemed even fouler than before, and I could not refrain from skewing my face after swallowing it.

“Horrible isn’t?” She smiled. “Believe me its not going to taste any better if you leave it standing for too long.”

She dipped two fingers in my cup and scooped out what appeared to be the remains of cooked beetles, which she threw in the fire. The crushed insect shells made a brief hissing sound when it hit the flames. I crinkled up my nose even more.

“Oh come on, its not poison.” She said when she saw that I was still staring at the brew inside my cup without my lips touching it. “I didn’t spend so much effort on keeping you alive for the last couple of days, just to kill you now you are finally getting better. This helps to remove the toxins from your blood and will keep down your fever. So drink up.”

I brought the cup back to my lips, and cautiously took a tip. It was then that she guided my hand and tilted the cup, pouring most of the content straight into my mouth.

“That’s a good boy.” With a satisfied little smile she took the empty cup away. “All gone now. You are off the hook for the next 4 hours."

“Who are you?” I coughed, wiping dry my chin with the back of my hand.

“My name is Ophelia. I am a healer.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“You were injured, so I brought you here to heal.” She shrugged, seemingly not understanding my suspicion of her motivations. “It’s what I do. You were lucky that I was on the road that night. Normally, I find the strangers who are so unwise to venture out into these parts in the dead of winter after dark in a far worse condition after the wolfs have their way with them.”

“Wait a moment.” I murmured as I started to put these bits of information together. “You were the hooded figure who rescued me in the forest from the wolves?“

“Yes.” She replied in a matter of fact manner.

“It was you? You were the archer who shot the black wolf dead? The one with the green eyes?”

“Yes.”

“And it was you who set the beasts on fire and drove them away, back into the woods?” I added with astonishment in my voice.

“Yes.” She raised her brows and gestured with her hands. “Why are you so amazed?”

“Because…well, look at you. You’re a woman. It can’t be you.” I blurted out, taking in her willowy frame. “How could you draw a bow? Or-or fight off a pack of wolves? You have not the courage nor the strength - ”

My heart fluttered when I saw her pick up the bow that hung above the fireplace.

“You think I cannot shoot an arrow because I am not a man?” Calmly, she arched the bowstring and aimed two arrows it me at the same time.

“No please don’t!” Before I could shrink back, she took the shot and the two arrows pierced right through the wall behind me. Each of them were mere the length of an eyelash away from my neck.

“Want me to demonstrate it again?” She asked cheerfully, as if she had not almost killed me, just to make a point.

Frightful, I held up my hands and shook my head.

“Good.” She said without any malice. She took a chair and sat down.

“Now it’s your turn.” She gazed straight into my eyes. “Who are you?”

“Me?” The question came so sudden that I did not know what to tell her. Audemar and Greybeard had never been interested in who I was, as long as I made them enough coin to satisfy their greed. For the last couple of years, I had been robed from even the dignity of a human name. I had no identity other then hog, or dog, or monster. Now she was asking me who I was and I could not even give her a true answer in fear that it could endanger my safety.

“I am a soldier.” I told her, struggling to invent a cover for myself that wasn’t too unbelievable.

“A soldier?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Why, you think I cannot fight because of this?” I said, and held up my left hand, becoming self-conscious after noticing that she had been staring at my wretched arm.

“Oh no.’ She said, shaking her head. “If you can believe a woman can be an archer, of course I can believe you are a soldier.”

I pressed my lips into a thin white line.

“How did you end up here?” She leaned forward, resting a chin on her hand. She carried an amused look as if she was settling herself down for an entertaining tale.

“I was…I was trying to get home. I’ve been fighting in the south for a very long time. I was traveling with my two companions by carriage when we made the wrong turn and lost our way.” A bitter taste filled my mouth when I recalled Greybeard and Audemar, particularly when I had to associate the word “companions” with these two villains who had wronged me so deeply.

“When we entered an abandoned plague town by nightfall we were attacked by wolfs. They chased us till the cart slipped and flipped on its side. I was flung out of the cart and went over the cliff-side.”

  
“Which one?”

“Which one what? I am not familiar with the name of the town.”

“Which battle did you fight in? On which side?” She clarified.

“The battle at Bosworth.” It was the first thing that came up in my mind. “For king Henry of course.” I hastened to add.

“Bosworth? The famous battle that has dethroned our late king Richard?” She looked surprised. “That’s a long way from here. You were traveling up north you say?”

“Uhm, yes, we were traveling to York.”The peculiar way in which she reacted to my lies was most unnerving.

“You’re from here?”

“That is correct.”

You certainly don’t sound like a northerner.”

“Well, neither do you.” I snapped back, getting irritated.

“You’re getting angry with me?” Her lips widened into a playful smile that only upset me even more.

“Is this some kind of interrogation? Do you want to know if I am able to repay you for your services, for saving my life? Is that it?” I blurted out. It seemed only logical. Much to my own sorrow, I had learned that no kindness in this world came without a price. No doubt she was after a handful of coins or any other kind of advantage that she could gain from me.

“No, of course not! It’s just – your story doesn’t make sense.”

She stood up and went over to a wooden chest that sat in the corner of the room.

“The morning after I found you, I went up the hill side and found the upturned wagon. I also found your friends. Or at least what was left of them. The bits the wolves have refused to eat.” She took out items that looked familiar to me.

“Forgive me for scavenging. There is so very little what I can get nowadays in the surrounding villages with the plague roaming these lands. It seemed a waste not to take what can still be used.”

She held up a blackened kettle and several smaller pots that my previous masters had once used to cook their supper. “Cooking utensils are always welcome, so are tunics, plaids, good knives and swords.” She showed me those too. They were all taken from the travel chests that were stored in the back of the cart.

“Tell you what, I also found this.” She threw the rusty set of cuffs, chains, and collar on the floor.

“I went through their pockets as well.” She added two blood-stained leather poaches that jingled heavy with coins when they landed. “Your companions were quite rich, which seemed a bit unfair since I found you dressed in rags and in such horrible state. I mean, your wounds..." She came closer to me, her eyes studying the many angry red patches on my skin. "The old wounds, not the new ones that came from the wolfs, they are very peculiar. They’re not cuts or fight wounds, injuries that you would expect from frighting in battle, but look more like bitemarks.” She gently ran her fingers over my bandages.

“And these.” She pointed out the red ring of inflamed tissue that seemed to never heal around my neck. They were marks made by the rusty collar scraping over my skin. She then held up my wrists where similar sores were visible.   

“You have a very poor taste in friends if you allow them to treat you like this.” She said, almost knowingly.

My heart was quickening in my chest. “What are you trying to prove here?” I said in a small voice. 

“I want to prove that you are lying.” She turned away and came back with a large rigid stick in her hand. The sight of it triggered a most disturbing memory and brought me back to my first days of incarceration by Greybeard. I was cowering on the floor, chained with my collar to a metal ring to the wall. Greybeard was waving a broom handle at me, threatening to give me a trashing if I didn’t obey his orders. Just a few feet away stood my cage. Two dogs were chained up inside. They were straining their bonds, barking madly and baring their teeth. “Get in there hog!” Greybeard swung down the heavy stick on my back that was already covered by a patchwork of bruises. I whimpered and shrunk back, but was too terrified to move any closer to the vicious hounds.

“I said get in there! Or I shall beat that hideous hump on your back into a sack of broken ribs! Get inside!”

She swung down the stick. I recoiled into a frightened, shivering ball, bracing myself for the pain to come. Instead, the heavy end of it came down on a lump of brown fur that was scuttling over the floor. It was dispatched with a brief rodent squeal.

My response startled her. “I was trying to get that rat.” She said softly. She pierced the flattened carcass and wanted to show it to me, but I could not make myself to look up, and cradling my head with my arms crossed over my chest, slowly rocking from back to front.

“Rats bring the plague. I have to be careful to keep them out of the house.” She tried to explain visibly alarmed by my distress. She threw the remains in the flames.

“I am sorry that I have frightened you.” She said with a touch of guilt in her voice. “Let me make another potion to help you calm your nerves.”

 

**1.3**

I woke from a dreamless sleep in the middle of the night. Moonlight entered through the narrow window and illuminated the small space, and revealed that her bed opposite to mine was empty. The embers in the fireplace were also almost completely extinguished, and the air was cooling fast. She must have been gone for some time.

“Do you think you can trust her?’ A voice whispered to me in the dark.

The room suddenly became much colder.

“Who speaks there?” I draped the bed linen around my shoulders, wrapping it tightly. “Is that you my young nephew?” I asked hopefully. “I have missed you. I feared you have returned to your eternal sleep.”

A white ghostly figure, as tall as a grown man, stood in the corner of the room. He was facing away towards the wall.

“You’re not my nephew.” I muttered, realizing this, my heart filled with ice-cold dread.

“Indeed, I am not your brother’s son. I am your cousin Buckingham.”

He turned to look at me with a gaze that was devoid of emotions. Blood stains were still visible around the collar of his yellow tunic. It was the same one he wore at the day of his execution. Where the axe had once struck his neck, a neat thin line continued to weep blood. 

“I have often dreamed of you.” I confessed to him, remembering his many manifestations in my night terrors in which I endlessly relived my dreadful moments before the battle. A dry lump was stuck inside my throat. “Why do you appear now in my waking hours?”

“Because you do not let me speak any longer in your nightmares. Why Edward’s son has granted you these peaceful nights knowing what you have done is beyond my comprehension.” He lamented.

“Are you a ghost?”

“Did you not murder me? Order my execution?” He said in an icy voice.

I nodded guiltily, covering my mouth with trembling fingers.

“Then what-else can I be but a ghost? My flesh and bones have turned to dust.”

“Do you seek revenge on me?”

“I already am avenged. You died Richard, don’t you remember? You died rather wretchedly.”

“But if that is not what you seek, what cause do you have to haunt me now?”

“I am here to advice you.” His words suddenly slipped into a more soothing tune. “I want to be a good counselor to you, my dear cousin. I once was when I was still breathing air. Do you trust her my lord? This stranger? This wolf-slayer? This most unnatural example of a woman? Do you trust her with your own life?”

“She has done me no wrong.” I reasoned.

“None so far, but she cunning. She did not believe any of the lies you’ve spun.”

“Even a mindless drunkard could have seen through my shallow lies. It has nothing to do with her.”

“Then it appears to me that my lord is much out of practice.” He said with mockery in his voice. “Your tongue used to be so crafty it could sway even the most wary of Christians martyrs to take the steps down a roman arena and into a pit with ravenous lions. Where has this cold callous brilliance gone?”

“I just had very little time to think.” Giving in to the urge to justify myself. “Anyway, she has been nothing but kind to me. She has cared for me while I was ill. She has treated my wounds.”

“So did Margaret. Who first held you prisoner, and then began to torture you.”

“She does not hold me prisoner.” I insisted.

“Are you certain?” A half-smile crossed his stone-like mask. “My lord should try the door.”

Weary and wary, I stepped out of bed and tried to open it, but found that the door indeed was locked.

“She barred it from the outside.” My dead cousin told me as he watched how I struggled, putting my shoulder to the panel and trying with all my strength to dislodge it. “There is no use. You cannot get out.”

“There is more.” He added, noticing my growing distress. “I saw her mounting her horse and riding away earlier this evening, taking the road south. There is a garrison town following that road, only half a night’s ride away.” Buckingham crept nearer. “I think she is going to sell you out to the king’s men.”

“But-why? W-why would she do that?” I stuttered.

“She knew that you were kept prisoner. Perhaps she suspects that you are a criminal, wanted by the law. There might a reward on your head.”

My stomach filled with stones and the dread turned into blinding panic.

“When she comes back in the morning, she may already have pocketed her thirty pieces of Judas silver with the king’s men sent out on their way for your arrest.”

“Oh w-what should I do Buckingham?” I clasped my hands over my head in desperation. “Please, I beg you, help me!”

“Kill her.” He said in one ice-cold breath. “My dear cousin. When she comes back, feign to be asleep. When she herself goes to bed to slumber, wait till she is sleeping sound, then smother her. Then take the coins that she had stolen herself from Greybeard and Audemar. Take her horse and flee north.”

“Yes, yes.” I nodded, so grateful to Buckingham that he was still sharp of mind and willing to part with good counsel, while mine was unraveling at such frightening speed. "I shall do what you say."

“Prepare for tomorrow. Pack enough food to last for several two days. You’ll also need weapons, and warm clothing to survive the nightly winter frost.”

I rummaged through her possessions and found a sword and a dagger. Then I looted her larder and stuffed stale bread, dried meats, and cheese into a backpack. I retrieved a tunic and a cloak made of sheep wool from her wooden linen chest, and found a pair of good leather boots underneath her bed.

“Don’t forget to take the coins.” Buckingham reminded me after I had put on the all the extra clothing.

I fished out the bag of coins that she had taken from my villainous masters, and stuffed this too into the backpack.

A burst of galloping hooves cut through the night’s silence and startled my actions to a halt.

“Is-is that her?” I asked.

Buckingham put his finger on his lips and slowly, turned to the window to check. “Just a lone traveler.” He informed me later. “Passing by.”

“What shall I do now?” I was unable to stop myself from fidgeting, such nervousness had overtaken me.

“Wait my lord. Wait and have patience.”

The fire had now completely died down and the frosty winter cold was seeping into the cabin. I went to bed fully dressed, holding the backpack against my belly, careful to hide it out of sight under the bed sheets. I was determined to stay awake, but as the nightly hours dragged on, and she did not return, sleep stealthily crept into to my mind. When the first light came from the east at dawn, I had surrendered to a dreamless slumber.

 

**1.4**

The early morning brought the loud calls of a persistent cockerel. I thrashed out of bed, but found to my relief that her bed was still occupied. Almost soundlessly, I sneaked out of mine. She had turned her face away towards the wall, locks of her dark hair and the tip of her pale upturned nose were just barely visible underneath a bundle of bed sheets.

“Place your hand on her mouth and suffocate her.” Buckingham whispered.

My hands trembled so much that I realized I lacked the courage to follow his horrific orders.

“You’ve killed before.” He reminded me in an accusing tone. By your own hands you have taken the lives of far nobler victims. You had stained your hands with the blood of your own blood. How come you’ve become so weak?”

“I just can’t! I can’t do it. Not like this!” I rambled.

“Then take the dagger, pierce her heart like you did with king Henry’s heart. Let the instrument guide your actions.”

I fumbled through the backpack and found the dagger. In my nervousness, I cut myself with the sharp blade.

“Oh be silent coward conscience.” I said to myself, trying to regain my calm. _If she stands in the way of my freedom and survival, I shall kill her._

“Do it! Do it, before she wakes!”

I raised the dagger with both hands and brought it down forcefully, stabbing her right through the thin sheets, repeating the horrific act incessantly till I was out of breath. She did not cry out, nor did she struggle. Then I realized how strange it was that no blood came to bloom on the cover surface. I pulled off the sheets and discovered that the bed was unoccupied. The only victims of my malicious knife crime were a tangled bundle of clothes and a ruined feather cushion.

I was sure that she had been here just a moment before. I had seen her. Very confused and starting to doubt my own sanity, I almost dropped the dagger in fright when the door of the cabin swung loudly against the wall. It appeared that the wind had blown it wide open. It brought in the sounds of human activity, coming from outside the courtyard, not far away.

Like someone who had just discovered that he was still wandering inside a dream, I ventured out. The sun was shining against a blue sky. Thaw came dripping down from the roof and the barren branches. Somewhere well hidden in the tree tops, a lone bird was singing. I inhaled a deep breath of cool winter air and stepped clumsily through the slush of softened snow.

I found Ophelia behind the dilapidated wooden shed. She was busy splitting firewood with an axe.  

“You’re up?” She said, when she saw me. “You look well today.” She gazed at my outfit shortly before bringing down the blade on a block of wood. “You got those from the linen chest?”

Not knowing how to react to her, I sheepishly nodded my head.

“Glad they fit.” She then set her eyes on the blade and the blood dripping from the cut on my hand.

“You’re bleeding.”

I turned my hand upwards and stared at the angry slash that went right through the lines of my palm. It had left bloody fingerprints on the dagger’s handle.

“Give me that.” Ophelia pointed at the knife. She was not angry, nor did she appear arduous or begrudging toward me. Her appearance remained one of calm and kindness.

Suddenly ashamed of what I had done, I passed the dagger over to her, bowing my head. She took me inside and wrapped my cut in bandages, which she soaked in a swig of strong spirit. To clean the wound, she told me. I was sure that she had noticed the many holes that I had made in her bed linens and mattress. She refrained from making any comments about it.

Instead she said. “What is your name?”

“My name?”

“You told me what you are, but not who you are. So what is your name?” She asked patiently.

I could have lied to her again, but no longer did I wish to.

“Richard.” I confided in her, and by doing so felt a great weight lifted from my shoulders. “My name is Richard.”

 


	9. Chapter 7: Zambriem, the angel of despair

**1.1**

After that disturbing incidence Ophelia no longer tried to find out more about my past, but instead accepted me for who I was, which was in her view, first and foremost, a poor lost thing that needed her aid. She provided it in her own subtle way. As I recovered to a point in which I was feeling strong enough to spend long periods of time out of bed, she gave me chores to do around the house to keep my troubled mind occupied.

I must confess that had never carried out any domestic tasks before in my whole life. Thus far, my family’s privileged position had always guarantied that I lived my life free of daily toil. I did have my talents of course, all painstakingly acquired after long years of maneuvering through the dangerous political waters at court. I knew like no other how to flatter diplomats, cultivate new alliances, weave complex webs of intrigues, and spread malicious gossip, all to further my own position on the hierarchical ladder towards the shining crown at the top. Similarly, I was skilled in military strategies to outsmart my enemies, knew how to swing a sword or two, and was well trained in killing men at battle.

I did not however, know what was required from me when she handed me an empty wooden bucket to get the days fresh milk. When I looked her at with an expression that signified that I did not have the faintest notion what to do with it, she pointed me in the direction of the dilapidated shed. There I found a large brown cow, happily chewing away through her stack of winterfeed.

It took me 3 hours of intense clumsy fiddling before I returned to show her the 4 miserable drops of milk that I had managed to collect.

“Is that all?” She asked, to which I responded with much indignation, particularly since the moody beast had kicked me twice already in my back during the whole tedious procedure. “She wasn’t in the mood of giving me more.” I lied, puffing a lock of sweaty hair out of my face while scraping my boots over the stones of the yard to get rid of the cow dung.

If I thought that she would leave it at this, I was surely mistaken. Ophelia dragged me back to the shed where she gave a rather smug demonstration how it should be done. Not to be bested by a bossy young Amazon archer woman from the backwaters of the north, I spent the rest of the afternoon yanking at the poor animal’s udder to get perhaps half a cup full.

“You could do better.” Was her only comment, and for the rest completely ignored what I first thought was already quite an improvement, before telling me to kindle the fire in preparation of cooking supper.

The next day I rose earlier and I managed to get a full cup by mid afternoon. The day after, half a bucket. It was after two full weeks that I could finally show her a full one. When I handed it over to her, she smiled and winked at me, and said; “Good, now you have enough to make cheese and butter with this.”

I realize how ridiculous this actually sounds, but just her confirmation that I had done something well gave me a sense of accomplishment that I had not felt since I was crowned monarch of the English realm. That evening, there was fresh butter and warm bread for supper to go with a hearty stew, cooked from a young rabbit that Ophelia had caught in the woods. After the pleasant meal, I crept into my warm bed with a full stomach, feeling oddly content.

The days that followed were mercifully mundane. My life with Ophelia slipped into a peaceful existence of simple pleasures that I had never recognized before in my previous life. I woke early at dawn and immediately went outside, treasuring the crisp morning air, the chorus of birdsongs, and the first sunlight that warmed my skin. After a simple breakfast of milk and bread I started with my daily chores. I cut wood and took care of the fireplace, milked the cow, and made cheese and butter for the larder, while Ophelia hunted with bow and arrow in the forest, cooked, and washed our clothes in a nearby stream.

She was a healer in every sense of the word. Not only did she mend my wounds, but she also restored my sanity. My cousin Buckingham no longer came to visit to whisper his murderous counsels in my ears. No longer was I alone. When I startled awake in the middle of the night, troubled by dreams that I often could not remember, she was there, lying fast asleep, her dark hair spread out over the white of the linen like a blackbird taking flight. I would stay in my bed, and watch the rhythmic rising of her bosom and the light fluttering of her eyelids, till my own became heavy once more and I drifted back to sleep again.

During that long winter, we spent many nights together sitting around the fire after supper. It wasn’t long till she started to tell me about her life. She told me about the peasant families who lived in the valley below, whose name of every family member she knew by heart and who she had visited regularly since she was a little girl. She revealed to me the many hidden places in the ancient woodlands where she often ventured to collect botanic rarities. According to her, they could be used to treat the most vicious of illnesses. She told me about the wild unforgiving harshness of the surrounding lands in the winter, and the great beauty and generosity of these same lands in the summer. From these stories, I learned that she had a deep-seated love for these forests and rivers, and the people who lived in it. It provided her with all that was needed for her simple way of life: Plenty of fresh water, food and shelter, and human companionship.

“My father was a healer.” She said one night, gazing at the sparks that sprung up from the flames. There was a fare-away look in her eyes.

“Did he teach you how to survive out here?” I asked, eager to know more. 

“He taught me everything I know.” She replied, with a sad smile.

“Where is he now?” I did not want to upset her, but I had for a long time questioned the strange absence of any of her family members. It did not seem right, even for someone like Ophelia, that a young woman would live out here all by herself in this god-forsaken wilderness.

She shrugged and kept gazing at the flames. “When I was 12, there was an outbreak of the black death down in the valley. The villagers asked my father to come and help. So he went, and treated 15 members of 3 different families who were affected. They had been shut inside their houses by their lord’s armed men, the healthy put together with the sick, the men with the women, the children with their parents and grandparents. It didn’t matter to their lord, as long as the disease was contained. The peasants were just expected to stay there in their boarded-up hovels till they were either no longer sick or dead. Without any of my father’s help, the outcome could only have been bleak.”

“Did he get ill?”

She poked in the burning wood blocks, sending more sparks into the hot rising air. “No, but when he came back after his visit, he was clearly affected by what he had seen. Like a man possessed, he was determined to save the villagers. So that same evening, he went out into the forest to collect the wild herbs that he needed for the potion. Didn’t even touch his supper. Just took his bag and left. I remember staying up the entire night, waiting for him to return. I kept the fire burning in case he wanted to make the elixir as soon as he came back. But he didn’t. He never came back.” She tossed another log into the flames. The flickering orange glow illuminated her face, which was grim and still showed traces of her grief.

“What about you?” She finally said. “Do you have a family of your own, Richard from Bosworth?”

I was not keen on telling her anything about myself, but was aware that she needed a distraction from her own painful memories. So I hesitantly began to tell her about my two brothers, carefully minding my words to not give away too much detail to allow her to find out about my true identity. I thought I would have to fabricate the entire story, but the opposite was true. To my own bafflement, I did not have to lie to her all.

I told her about my perfect brother Edward. He was noble and brave, a prince among man, who easily acquired adoration from everyone, from my parents to his playmates and later, from the men who fought with him in battle to the peasants who cheered him on from the fields. Growing up together, I absolutely adored him. It was only later, after I had grown in a mere shadow of the man who Edward had become, that I found out that his love was much like the sun on a cloudy spring day. The moment it was gone, you were left miserable and alone, desperately in want of its warmth.   

I also told her about Clarence, who according to my mother had a lovely cheerful nature and was such a sweet child. Unlike me, who had to practice and make perfect the many social skills that I was still lacking from birth, Clarence had a natural charm and a straightforward way in dealing with others that made him instantly popular.

Like me, Clarence both worshipped and was envious of Edward. You see, in other people’s eyes, he was always the lesser version of lord York’s golden boy. I knew he never harmed me on purpose, but it remained nevertheless convenient for him to have a third sibling that looked the way I did. It was as if Clarence wanted to forget that he was an imperfect reflection of Edward, by reminding others of my many physical flaws. Did I ever forgive him for constantly exposing me to his inconsiderate, selfish pranks, and turning me into the butt of his every joke ever since I was just vulnerable young child?

Probably not.

And yes, of course he did pay for it, but I was not ready to tell Ophelia about my past sins. Neither did I wish to dwell on my grievances with Clarence. I noticed that my own narrative had brought me close to my own demons, and I was eager to make a change of subject.

I asked why she didn’t believe that I was a retired soldier who had recently fought at Bosworth.

Because it is impossible.” She replied with a smile that implicated that she was in on the joke. “The battle of Bosworth took place more then 55 years ago. You don’t look any older than 35. You could not have been there when the Tudor army defeated that of the York king. Even king Henry has been dead for over 30 years now. So who do you think you are fooling with this mad unbelievable claim?”

“Richmond…Richmond is dead.” I mumbled, baffled by the news. My throat suddenly narrowed and blocked the air from entering my lungs. “But…If he’s dead, who is on the throne of England now?”

“His son Henry Tudor of course, the eight of his name.”

Her smile vanished when she noticed the sudden change of expression on my face. “Are you all right Richard?”

I told her it was just tiredness, but inside my chest it felt like someone was tightening a rope around my heart. Her words had swept the ground right away from under my feet. No longer able to uphold a façade of calm, I told her that I would like to turn in early, fibbing that I may be coming down with a common cold, and no, I did not want her to brew me another one of her potions, I just needed rest.

That night, I lay awake for a very long time. My mind was constantly churning up questions and answers, till it became one frightening mess that lacked all clarity and purpose.

How long had I been dead before Margaret brought me back? I recalled vividly my own horrible decay that I had witnessed in the visions that she had conjured up in her pocket mirror. Then I realized that the boy that I had encountered during my escape from the palace was not Richmond’s son, but his grandson. Generations had gone by since my demise. Everyone I once knew, my mother, Edward’s wife Elizabeth Woodville, the traitor Thomas Stanley, they all must be dead by now.

All except for Margaret.

Why? Why was she still alive? She was already well passed childbearing age, with streaks of grey in her long hair, when my brother took her captive after the battle of Tewkesbury that brought an end to her Lancastrian line. Yet she seemed to have not aged one single day since the last time I had met her in my previous life.

Did she truly make a deal with the devil? Had he granted her an unnatural long life so she could facilitate the damnation of my soul?

As the long night dragged on, and I kept tossing and turning in my bed, I could hear my cousin Buckingham again, murmuring his sweet toxic words into my ears. It was only after the first rays of the morning sun grew tall over the wooden cabin walls that some of my sanity returned.

 

**1.2**

**Amiens, 1470**

The girl was barely 16, but already her heart was full of a lifetime worth of sorrows. You could easily see it, if you had time or the heart to care, in the way she walked with her back bend and shoulders hunched forward, as if she was carrying the whole weight of the world all by herself. A black scarf was wrapped around her head and hid the beauty of her youth for which she did not care any longer. The wide black dress she wore could only partly hide her large round belly from the judging eyes of the men and women passing by. As she went through the city gates and quietly made her way to the hidden spot by the river that was just outside of town, she could feel the infant kick inside her, as if pleading for his unborn life.

Too occupied by her own miserable thoughts, she hardly noticed that she was being followed. It was only when she crossed the rickety wooden bridge that span across the rushing river, and felt the narrow structure sway as a result of his footsteps, that she glanced over her shoulder and noticed the stranger.

“Oh, I am so sorry that I have startled you.” The man apologized with a polite little bow. He was handsome. Tall and lean with long black hair, a sharp pale face, and a set of hooded eyes that looked right into her soul. “I have forgotten that I am no longer as light-footed as I used to be.” As he said it, he felt his back muscles strain, as if his human body was mourning the loss of his most precious heavenly assets by beating with his phantom wings. He shuddered and cursed his father under his breath.

“Monsieur, have you been following me?” The girl asked. Her hands clutched on to the fabric of her scarf so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

“I have to regrettably admit that I was.” He replied. He had no cause to lie to the girl. It would not make a difference to her anyway.

“Why?”

“Because I know where you are heading.”

“Are you trying to stop me?” She said it in a way that it could be interpreted as a question, or as a cry for help. He knew that in truth, she was longing for kindness, for someone to offer her a hand to lift this heavy bleakness from her shoulders. Fortunately for the poor child, he was the right man to ask. 

“Me?” Lucifer grinned his toothy grin. “No absolutely not. Your life is your own. If you’ve made the decision to seek self-destruction, it is not my business to criticize or intervene.”

“But, if you’re not trying to stop me, why are you then following me?”

“I need a guide.”

“A guide?” She repeated, not sure she had heard him right.

“It’s complicated.” He raised his eyebrows as he sought for the right way to explain his intensions to this simple human female. He chose to go with a short allegory, for he never had much patience. “It is like I am seeking truffles in the wood and need a good hound with a strong nose to find them.” He tapped the side of his own with his finger. “You my child, have a very strong nose for truffles.” He paused when he noticed that the girl was slowly backing away from him. It was obvious that she was getting more alarmed by his bizarre rambling than she was getting enlightened.

“Look, you are desperate, are you not?” He tried again with a tad more patience. “The lover who you thought would be your husband has abandoned you while you are 6 months pregnant with his child. The man you gave your heart to has smashed it into a thousand tiny pieces, and it will never be whole again.” He gazed at her, a cruel sadness lingered in his hooded eyes. It cut right through her heart.

“I know you still hope that your actions will force him to mend his ways, but believe me, he will not shed a single tear after hearing of your demise. Before daylight breaks and the fishermen drag your lifeless body from the river, he will have spent the night in bed with another woman, younger and more beautiful than you. By next month, he will even have forgotten your name. Your time together, the many happy smiles, the long blissful nights dozing in each-others arms, the secrets pet names that you have shared, it all means nothing. _You_ mean nothing to him.”

“Stop it!” The girl cried out. Rivers of tears were flowing down her cheeks. “Stop it! Why are you so mean to me? I have nobody left. He doesn’t want to see me. My father kicked me out of the house. He said I was a disgrace. I have no one in this world. No one!” She wept miserably, clutching on to her belly, while snot dripped down from the tip of her nose.

“Oh yes.” Lucifer murmured, taking in her sorrow with a strange sense of pleasure. “There it is, true, deep felt misery.” He inhaled deeply. “My child, forgive me for enjoying it so much, but your hopelessness has turned your body into one of the finest instruments on earth. Each exquisite note it sends out vibrates in the air, and is vocalizing such _devastating_ sadness.” He closed his eyes and swayed his head gently as if entranced by a completely silent musical masterpiece. “It’s a pity that you cannot hear it, it is absolutely beautiful.”

“W-what d-do you w-want from me?” The girl hiccupped, choking on her tears.

Lucifer’s eyes snapped back open. Finally this was getting him somewhere. “It’s simple. I want you to follow your heart. I want you to go the place where you want to take your life. Where were you heading before you noticed me?”

“To the riverside.” She didn’t know why she was telling him this, but it didn’t matter. Nothing in the world mattered anymore. She felt completely dead inside. “There is a place I know where an old willow tree grows. A tree with tangled roots and low hanging branches that touch the flowing water below. It’s quiet and very peaceful. I want to go there.”

“Show me.”

She took him there. It was exactly like she had described, a calm shoreline just around the river bend, half-hidden behind the swaying reed. It had an ancient willow tree growing from its muddy soil with her long branches gently swaying along with the currents of the stream.

Still weeping, the girl pulled up her frock and stepped over the boulders into the water. Wading in till the icy stream reached up to her middle, she then slowly turned, and looked up at Lucifer with her large brown eyes pleading for sympathy.

“Oh don’t mind me.” Lucifer replied, turning his attention away from the pitiful creature. “Just do what you came here for.” He added for encouragement. He no longer needed her. He had found what he was looking for. Placing his hand flat on the trunk of the willow, he felt an ancient heart beating slowly underneath the rough surface of the bark. This tree that looked so ordinary and grew unnoticed on the muddy banks of an unremarkable river, was humming with despair, exuberating anguish, bleeding pure misery. It was literally oozing with the most depressing human emotions known to mankind.

The girl lost her footing and splashed into the water. The currents swept her down to a deeper part of the river where she could barely touch the bottom, forcing her to hop on the tip of her toes to allow her head to break the water surface.

“Are you still with us?” Lucifer shouted over his shoulder.

Half drowning now and in absolute panic, the girl cried out for help, swallowing mouthfuls of water into her lungs as she tried to hold on to the low hanging branches of the willow tree. This commotion finally caught Lucifer’s attention. A bit annoyed that he was distracted, he went back to the riverside.

The girl cried out to him once more, her hand outstretched. “Ah I see that you are struggling to keep your resolve.” He observed the situation with a concerned furrow in his brows. “To be fair, drowning is not the easiest way to leave this life.” He searched around, picked up a long sturdy branch, and pointed it at her. “Here, let me return your kindness.”

At first the girl thought that he was offering her a way to get out of the water, and she let go of the willow branch to reach it. But instead of allowing her to grab on, her would-be savior put the tip of the branch against her chest and used it to violently push her down.

“Easy now.” He muttered while she desperately struggled to come up for air. “Easy. You will thank me when this is over.”

She continued for a good two minutes till finally, a string of bubbles rose up from her mouth and nose. Then her body went limp.

Lucifer held her down for another two minutes, just to make sure. It was the least he could do for the poor soul. He then pushed her further away to the middle of the river. Soon her lifeless body was swept away by the currents.

Lucifer tossed the branch in the water and turned his attention back to the ancient tree.

“My brother, did you sense her?”

Gently, he rested his hand on the trunk. The fear that had eradiated from the now deceased girl was like a strong aftertaste that clung bitterly onto his tongue. “To be so miserable yet unable to end it all due her natural fear of dying.” He shook his head in true dismay. “It is such a sick trick of the human mind. Our father has created a multitude of flaws in these creatures. It was a mistake to abandon them like this. They truly need guidance. Luckily, we are here.”

He caressed the bark with his fingers, relishing the last fleeting moments in the existence of this ancient willow tree, before he took in a deep breath and took a short axe from out of his backpack.

“Now this may sting a little.” He warned with a grimace, before he swung it hard against the trunk.

Where the tree was cut, it started to weep crimson blood.

He swung at it again.

The branches of the willow shuddered violently as if it was in great pain, and the many birds nesting in its crown took to the air in fright.

He continued till the willow finally fell with a loud miserable moan, tearing the crimson cut that he had created further open like a wide bleeding mouth. As it hit the ground, the leaves fused into pale spiderleg-like fingers that ended in long green fingernails. A satisfied grin spread over Lucifer’s lips, and he buried the axe in the bleeding stump, before he went to sit down in the tall grass to watch the rest of the transformation, chomping on a fresh red apple that he had picked from an orchard nearby. 

It took some time for the branches of the old tree to join and twist together to form the shape of a human-like shape. Legs and arms appeared first, followed by a long torso, a sinewy neck, broad shoulders and a large round head. Finishing the apple in one bite and tossing the core over his shoulder, Lucifer stood up and walked over to the newly formed man, offering him his hand.

“Welcome back Zambriem.” He smiled, pulling his brother up from the ground. The man he was talking to stood uneasily, swaying on two stiff legs like someone balancing on stilts. His skin, although pink, hairless, remained like bark, and was rough to the touch.

  
“Who has freed me? Is that you, father?” Zambriem said, blinking blindly as he gazed around. He had not used his sense of sight for a very long time.

“No, not our father.” Lucifer sighed, and wiped with his thumb over the corners of his brother’s eyes to remove most of the ancient dirt and moss that had collected in there.

“Lucifer?” Zambriem exclaimed after his sight was finally cleared. “Did our father send you? Have I finally atoned for all of my sins?” He asked with great hope.

“Ah I am afraid I have to disappoint you again. No.”

“But then…why am I free?” There was a pitiful sense of dread in Zambriem’s voice that annoyed Lucifer immensely. As if being free was not a cause worth pursuing in itself. Oh no, one had to be absolutely forgiven by their lord and master to be truly fulfilled… _Now good luck with that…_

“Because I need you.” Lucifer replied, trying to remain patient with his brother. He could imagine that to be condemned by their father to live on earth as an immobile plant for over 5000 years was not exactly going to leave one unaffected.

“You need me…for what exactly?” Dry flakes of bark came off his face when Zambriem creased up his forehead. “You’re not going to rebel again are you?”

“No of course not.”

“Because it didn’t end so well the last time you tried. I wouldn’t have ended up on earth if it wasn’t for you. Don’t you remember? I wouldn’t have turned into this.” He rubbed his fingers together to demonstrate, releasing yet another cloud of crusty flakes into the air.

“Yes, I am very well aware what became of us last time father disagreed with my plans. Thank you.” Lucifer snapped back, wishing that his new awakened sibling would stop reminding him of his past failures. “I am not rebelling. I told you so didn’t I?

Zambriem looked at him with suspicion. “You swear?”

Lucifer sighed. “Yes I swear.”

“Truly swear? None of that phony stuff.”

“Yes, yes, what-ever offers your heart content.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?” Zambriem insisted, raising his hand as if to take an oath.

Rolling his eyes, Lucifer counted back from ten, then mimicked his brother’s action and said; “I swear it. Now finally, can we get back to business?”

“With you, it is always business.” Zambriem mumbled. Moving like an eighty year old, he carefully sat down on a large boulder next to stream, and gave his aching legs a good stretch. “Ah, that feels so incredibly good. You have no idea how awful it was to be standing up all the time. It had been pure torture.”

“Zambriem, I know you have suffered because of the, perhaps tiny little mistake that I have made in the past, but I think we should put this all behind us now, and…well…you know, focus on the present?”

Lucifer paused when a raven flew down from a nearby tree and perched on Zambriem’s head. It gazed up at Lucifer with a mischievous twinkle in its beady eyes.

“Ah master Crock, my good friend.” Zambriem spoke to the bird. “Master Crock and his family sleep in my crown every night. He was born in the narrow cavity near my trunk on my second largest branch. I have know him since he was a chick.” He scratched the bird over his back feathers. “So you have no trouble recognizing me then.” He muttered to his pet. “Can’t say the same thing about you though.” He added thoughtfully, while gazing at Lucifer.

“What do you mean?” Lucifer huffed. He was getting increasingly convinced that Zambriem’s long confinement had turned his brains into a bit of a mush. “It’s me inside this hideous human meat suit. Can’t you see?”

“It’s not your human form that is wrong Lucifer.” Zambriem replied, sighing deeply. “You and I, we used to be angels.”

“We still are angels.” Lucifer corrected him, rather stubbornly.

No.” Zambriem shook his head in anger, having absolutely none of it. “You know what I mean with this. We _used_ to be heavenly hosts. We can see every living creature in its purest form. As soon as you arrived at the riverside, you knew that I was Zambriem. You did not see a tree, you saw me.”

“Yes, yes, and when you look at me you see your loving brother Lucifer Morning star. I am aware that we can see through the mortal vessels and recognize our kind immediately, but what’s your point here exactly?”

“I don’t see you, Morningstar.” Zambriem paused, finding it really hard to explain, he furrowed his massive brows. “At least, not the whole of you…It’s like something is missing…a part of you is missing.”

“What part?” There was an awful feeling of déjà vu when a great anxiety crept back into Lucifer’s heart. Zambriem’s strange behavior reawakened the memory of his first moments in his current human form. He had this moment of clarity before, back at the abbey, when he was standing in the kitchen larder biting in an apple. There was a sense of something important that the fallen angel had completely forgotten, that he could not allow himself to forget again.

“What? What is missing Zambriem?” He pressed on, realizing that the clarity wouldn’t last, just like the last time.

Zambriem gazed at Lucifer with the expression of a dying fish on dry land. His mouth slowly opened as if he was just about to tell him, but then the message slipped from his presence of mind and settled back deep in his sub-consciousness, far beyond his grasp. 

“What…” Zambriem mumbled, slowly massaging his temples. “What was I trying to say?” 

“I have truly no idea.” Lucifer muttered. The urgency of the conversation that took place a mere second ago was now completely forgotten. It was as if the two fallen angels had been affected by severe selective communal amnesia.

He threw his head back and let out a frustrated sigh. _Right, getting back to business._

“My dear melancholic brother.” He tried again. “Whatever grudge you may hold against me, the fact remains that I have freed you from what is, as you have so accurately pointed out, a very unfair and cruel punishment that our fa-“

“Stop wasting your breath Lucifer. I may be slow but I am aware that I owe you a favor.” Zambriem interrupted him. “You don’t need to remind me. I will honor our old ways.” He straightened his back and gazed at his brother with a tired expression on his face. “Just name your price and I shall do what must be done.”

His answer pleased Lucifer a lot. “I want you to help with a little project of mine. Nothing horribly offensive to our father, I swear.” He added quickly, after he noticed the accusing look Zambriem was giving hem. “It’s actually an absolution project. Something to surprise the old man, and help him to get a bit of weight off his mighty shoulders.”

“Absolution? For our sins?” Zambriem’s eyes grew wide with hope.

“ Oh yes. Let me tell you this, if our father finds out what we are going to do for him, he is going to be so impressed! We will be back up in heaven and soaring over the silver city with our new set of wings before you can drop on your knees to do little prayer.”

“What do you exactly have in mind?”

The grin on Lucifer’s lips widened till it went from ear to ear. “We are going to build a place for our father to house all the sinful souls. I call it _hell_.”

 


	10. Chapter 8: Raguel, the angel of vengeance

**1.1**

**Bosworth, 1485**

The green fields of Bosworth had turned into a bloodbath. Everywhere one looked, men in armor were murdering each other. Soldiers with blood and mud caked on their faces were cutting, stabbing, and slicing their way through the chaos. A knight tumbled from his horse with a lance stuck in his breastplate. Horses who had lost their masters galloped around in frantic fear, trampling many under their hooves. The clatter of blades striking on blades and the screams of injured and dying soldiers filled the air and reached all the way to heaven. Amid this all, a young Tudor soldier was ambushed by one of the Yorkies, and found himself crawling over the muddy grounds with his left side bleeding, backing away from an enemy that held hem at his sword’s end. Before he could start begging for his life, a shadow appeared behind his assaulter. A fluid swing of the sword, and the head was removed from the shoulder. The headless torso dropped on its knees and slumped over, revealing the knight standing behind. His face was hidden behind the visor of his helmet, and he did not wear the colors of the York king, but neither did he support the sigils of the Tudor army.

“Oh thank you my lord for saving my li-“ before the Tudor soldier could finish his sentence the knight stuck his sword through his throat. As the dying young man gazed up at him with a white-rimmed puzzled look, the knight put his boot on his chest and pushed him away to retreat the bloody blade. Before the body hit the ground, he was already spinning around, ready take another swing at whoever was so unlucky to get near him. 

“Raguel!” Someone shouted from behind.

Hesitantly the knight lowered his sword. Grim focus dissipated from his posture when he recognized the man who had called out his name. “Lucifer, is that you?”

“It’s been a long time my brother.” Lucifer said, with a great affectionate grin.

The knight took off his helmet, revealing a determined face with sharp features, crowned by golden curls. He embraced his fallen brother when his eyes set on the strange looking man standing beside Lucifer. “Zambriem? Well I’ll be damned! You’re here as well?” He went over to his other brother and embraced him tightly. “I can’t believe my eyes. Did the old man set you both free?”

“No, not exactly.” Lucifer replied, nimbly dodging an axe that was wielded in his direction. “We are on free footing without our father’s permission.”

“Ah.” Raguel muttered, giving it a thought. “So you are fugitives.”

“Indeed.” Lucifer answered with a smirk.

“I take that the others are looking for you.”

“Undoubtedly. You are not going to tell on us, are you?”

“Me?” Raguel scoffed. “Right, do I still look like one of them then?” He pointed with his thumb at his back. “They took my wings away a long time ago. Whatever bothers the hosts, it’s no longer my concern.”

“Duck!” He called out to his brother before he thrust his sword forward. The blade flew mere inches away from Lucifer’s head as the fallen angel crouched down just in time to remove himself from the line of the attack. When he rose up again, Raguel was already busy with prying his blade out from a York soldier’s eyesocket.

“So you are not going to betray us?” Zambriem asked. He gazed worriedly at the blood dripping from his brother’s blade.

“of course not Zambriem.” Raguel patted him on his shoulder in good humor. “You are both safe with me.”

“Speaking of safety, what is going on here? It’s like a carnal house. Which war are these humans fighting in at the moment?” Lucifer enquired.

“It’s the war between the Yorkies and the Lancastrians.”

Lucifer shrugged and returned to him a most vacant stare.

“You have never heard of it?”

“Sorry, I have been out of touch with the world’s events for a long time, and didn’t have the opportunity yet to catch up. Anyway, It’s probably like any other war these humans come up with anyway, all bloody and boring and rather pointless.”

“Well, this one has been going on for ages, although this is going to be the final battle. That York king Richard, he’s really a nasty piece of work.” Raguel smirked. “Excuse me for a moment.” He swung around and decapitated another Tudor soldier who was about to charge at him with a lance. “The nobles on the York side won’t want to continue after the dust settles.” He continued, kicking the head away. “They were only fighting for him because he had them on a tight bloody leash.”

“Is that so.” Lucifer sighed, finding that these details of local politics bored him. “Could we perhaps go somewhere else to talk? I find it rather difficult to carry on a civilized conversation while all around us the human are hacking eachother to bits.”

“Oh.” Raguel furrowed his brow in surprise as if not comprehending how this place could not be everyone’s cup of tea. “Alright. Guess I can always come back to make it to Henry Tudor’s victory speech.” He wiped the blood from his sword and sheeted it. “This way then gentlemen.”

With one dismissive wave of his hand, he forced his will on the fighting men, and the clashing troops parted, allowing the three fallen angels to make their way through the battlefield without so much of gaining a scratch.

“I know a nice place in London, a tavern that was build in 1612.” Raguel proposed to the others. “We will go there around 1625. That’s the time when the place is buzzing with a merry mood and the landlord doesn’t water down his ale so much. We can talk there.”

Stepping carelessly over and on the many corpses and would be corpses, they soon came to the edge of the battlefield. With a flick of his wrist, Raguel opened a portal, a blue and white light that was twirling violently in vortex form that the hosts used to traverse time and space. Lucifer stepped through first and was greeted on the other side by the uproarious racket of a cheery bar crowd and the thick stench of wet ale-soaked straw, sweat and puke.

“Let’s take that table over there.” Raguel said after he had crossed over with Zambriem, and pointed out a cozy dark corner of the tavern. The three of them sat down at a wobbly table. If with merry atmosphere, Raguel meant that there was a noisy, rowdy crowd eager to drink themselves to ruin, he had the place well-described. Lucifer could barely hear himself think.

“Hey sweetheart!” Raguel raised his hand to get the attention of the barmaid. “Get us three strong ales, and one of your best edible cheeses.” He ordered. He spat on the floor and slapped her on her backside when she passed by.

“Why did you do that?” Zambriem asked, disgusted by his behavior.

“I am just blending in with the locals.” Raguel explained. “They expect this sort of behavior around here. Wouldn’t do it if we were in the same place a couple of centuries later.” He wiped his hand clean on his tunic. You never knew what you could get from these tavern wenches.

“What happens a couple of centuries later?” Zambriem asked.

“You both have not been venturing through the time stream much?” Raguel noted.

“I have done some traveling.” Lucifer replied. “But it was mainly limited to these last couple decades and to the territories of France and England. Most of it was because I was looking for you and Zambriem. We both were punished most cruelly by our heavenly father. He had not only sent poor Zambriem to earth to suffer amongst the mortals, but he had also turned him into a tree. He’s been spending most of human history in some sort of vegetated state. I doubt he was even aware of the passing of time. I found him in the north of France and freed him from his predicament.”

“My poor brother.” Laguel muttered, clearly saddened by this revelation, although he wondered how much of his old self had returned to Zambriem now that he walked free. He looked much distracted, as if his physical body was here, but his mind had been left back in France.

“What about you Lucifer? What happened to you punishment?”

Lucifer leaned forward and returned a sarcastic grin. “Our father had cast me into the chaoplasm.” He lowered his eyes, pressing his lips into a thin white line. “He banished me to the howling wilderness. He imprisoned me in the last remains of the darkness that existed before his creation of the universe.”

“The chaoplasm?” Raguel mumbled, taken aback by the severity of the sentence. “That is horrible. That place is devoid of anything, of life, of light…it is…”

“Without hope. Pure unadulterated desperation.” Lucifer finished his sentence for him and returned him a cold lingering stare.

“No wonder you didn’t wait for him to let you out. How you must have suffered.”

“Dwelling for so long in that solitary place, I must admit that I had come very close to insanity.” Lucifer muttered, recalling the soul destroying boredom of it all. “What about you?”

“Banishment to earth. I’ve been stuck in this ridiculous human vessel ever since. I guess I was lucky. Compared to what father had done to you and Zambriem, I have no right to complain.” Raguel replied.

“And now you spend your days fighting for this tyrant king?” Lucifer enquired.

“Me? Oh don’t be ridiculous! I don’t fight for any of these disgusting mortals! I fight, because I like _killing_ them.” In his eyes, Lucifer found the familiar gleam of his wrath slowly smoldering under the calm surface of this fallen host who was once been the angel of vengeance. “There is no time in history where it’s easier to cut them down by the hundreds without any consequences than during a long bloody war!”

“You still blame them for what happened to us then?” Lucifer opted most innocently, but by doing so, knew fully well that it would entice more hatred from his brother.

“Of course humanity _is_ to blame! They are the cause of all of our misery!’

“Well, technically, it was our brother Lucifer who came up with the plan to rebel against our father.” Zambriem mumbled with a presence of mind that was rare for him.

Lucifer shot a nasty look at Zambriem, which was hardly noticed by his sibling, but Lucifer did not need to worry. 

“You should not blame our brother.” Raguel told Zambriem. “It wasn’t his fault that our father chose the side of these bipid apes instead of his heavenly children. Think about it. We are his first borns. Once, we were his most obedient children who had followed his wise counsels without a shred of doubt in our hearts. We had served him the best and we were the most loyal. From all of his creations, we were the most deserving of his greatest gift, this free will that these foul humans squander away with their pettiness and greed. When our noble brother Lucifer finally dared to request this same gift for the hosts, did he reward us with what we most desired. Did he treated us with kindness and understanding, when we dared to stand up to him to ask for our own autonomy? No! He punished us, labeled us as rebels, and cast us out of the silver city. He treated us like garbage.” In his rage, he slammed his fists so hard on the table top, that he almost knocked over the cups of ale that the barmaid had just brought to them. “Face it Zambriem, our father does not love us. He loves these humans. He has forgotten about us. If Lucifer had not freed you, you will still be rooted to the earth with your branches to heaven, begging for his for mercy and never receiving it, till the sun sets in the east and all of time has ended.”

“We…indeed have a most severe father.” Lucifer concluded with a dramatic sigh after he had listened most contently to Raguel’s fevered rambling. He understood now that he did not need to do much to convince Raguel of the legitimacy of his goal. “You are right.” Lucifer continued. “We have lost our father’s love to these lowly insolent creatures that he had allowed to inherit the earth. But that does not mean that we are without hope.” he leaned forward to Raguel, his voice lowered into a whisper. “It does not mean we can not regain our father’s love.”

“And how would we do that?” Raguel scoffed.

“We are free, aren’t we?” Lucifer leaned back and spread out his hands. “Despite the horrible circumstances, we have endured, we are now here on earth, far away from the restrictions imposed on us by heaven. In a sense, we have as much autonomy over our actions as these humans around us.”

“Yes, yes I realize that, but what to you do with it?” Raguel asked. Lucifer did not fail to register the pure irony of the fact that the price that his brother had fought so hard to obtain, had been in a certain way granted to him by their creator, and still he was burning with resentment. It was the way Raguel’s mind worked. It could not justify his own existence without hatred. The desire for retribution is what kept the furnace of his heart alight.

“That’s precisely what I asked myself, a few decades ago.” Lucifer said, with a smile dawning on his lips. “I found my purpose, and so did Zambriem, with a little help of mine. The question is now, my dear brother, would you like to know yours?”

“Do I get to make these humans to suffer?”

“I could not imagine a way in which my ambitions could be fulfilled without your violent desires.” Lucifer replied. 

“Then I am all ears.” Raguel replied, downing his ale in one long swallow.

 

**1.2**

“Are you awake Richard?”

It was still dark, the cabin filled with the scent of wood smoke of the fire that had extinguished hours earlier. Ophelia was standing in front of my bed. She was fully dressed, and carried a bag that hung low near her hip.

“Are you going into the woods again?” I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

She smiled at me. “You want to tag along?”

I dressed myself and followed her out into the courtyard. Ophelia saddled her horse and climbed on. She held out her hand to help me up.

“Where are we going exactly?” I noted that the moon shone full and bright through the crowns of the surrounding trees. It was not too cold, but at this time of year, although daytime might remind one of spring, the winter still made it’s present known at night.

“You will see when we get there.” Was her answer.

I was not accustomed to ride as a second rider on the back. Noticing that I was searching for something to hold on, she took my good right hand and placed it firmly around her waist.

“I don’t think this is appropriate.” I told her, remembering the etiquettes.

“Just hold on. I don’t want you to fall off and break your neck.”

We rode over the same narrow upwards winding path on which Greybeard had met his untimely demise by the wolfs. I did not have a natural fear of heights, but as the sharp drop of the cliff began to reveal itself on my left hand side, I could not help myself from tightening my grip around Ophelia’s waist.

After we had reached the summit, she guided the horse to take a route that diverted from the main path and went straight into the forest. Trunks and bare branches of undergrowth grew thicker as we ventured further, till there was barely open ground left for the horse to tread. I looked up at the sky, and noticed that the large moon and the stars were barely visible through the crisscross crowns of the dense tree tops.

The journey continued till the forest growth once again became sparser, and we encountered a small open space. A beam of moonlight spread a silver disk over the forest floor.

We dismounted. Ophelia took out her dagger and knelt down to remove some of the top soil. She revealed a circle of unusual growth of pale saplings with dark red foliage, half hidden between last year’s dry crumble of fallen leaves.

“What are these?” I asked, as I watched her dig one of the plants out of the still half-frozen ground.

“Mandrake roots. I came here often with my father to collect them. You are supposed to harvest these at winter nights when the moon is full. That is when the plant’s roots are at it strongest and they are at their most useful.”

I did not immediate understood what she meant, till she had freed enough soil around the little plant and asked me to help her pull it out. With both of us grabbing on to the stem, it still took much effort to get it release itself from the soil. When it finally let go, an extensive web of root structures came with it, with bits of earth still clinging on.

“What are you going to use this for?” I had no experience with medicinal herbs, other than those who had been given to me in one form or the other by the healers.

“You boil it down together with wolfclaw, nettle, wormstongue and a handful of cloves to make it into a thick potion. You could add a table spoon of honey to taste if you like. It is quite bitter. My father used it to treat plaque victims.”

“Wait, you’re telling me that you use this to make a cure for the plaque?” I concluded, furrowing my brows.

“You don’t believe me?” She asked, placing her hands on her hips.

I had never heard of the existence of any cure, not even from our court physicians, who were considered the most esteemed medical men in our realm. “To my knowledge there is nothing that works against that horrible disease. The only way to deal with is to make sure you never catch it. 

“Well, this works, because this is no ordinary mandrake.” She made a cut in the skin of the root with her dagger and showed it to me. The flesh began to weep a deep dark liquid.

For a moment, I doubted if what I saw was a distortion of color by the moonlight. “This looks like blood.”

“That’s because it is blood. The roots of the plants run very deep. They soak it up from deep underground.”

“You’re telling me there is blood? In the soil?” My face must display my incredulity as plainly as a picture to her, because she responded very defensively.   

“Yes, there is blood in the soil. You know why? Because this is the exact place, where many years ago, an angel fell to earth.”

“Right.” I raised my eyebrows, not knowing if she was mad enough to truly believed in this tripe or that she was just pulling me a leg. It worried me that she seemed too serious to be teasing.

“You are doubting me again?”

“Forgive me, digging for a wonder plant that would cure the world of the plague aside, I indeed find it very hard to believe that this crimson sap that comes out of it, is in fact the sacred blood spilled from a wounded angel.” My voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“It is the truth.” She replied, her voice so full of conviction that I knew now for sure that she meant every word of it. “My father told me this, and I believe him. He would never lie to me.”

“What kind of angel was he then talking about?” I asked, though I doubted if I should indeed humor her and go along with her crazy reasoning. “Did he mean the fallen one, the devil?” Although the comment was meant to be light hearted, the mere mention of his name caused me unease and dampened my impulse to mock her. Who was I to judge Ophelia on her beliefs and question her sanity? My own guilt-ridden mind was one anxious hornet nest of phobias and hallucinations. It was by no doubt more corrupted and ill than her would ever be.

“No.” She replied in a soft voice. “This angel was kind. He did not fall because of his arrogance, he fell because he was compassionate.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

“You don’t believe in angels?”

“No I don’t.”

“What do you believe in then?”

“In ghosts.” I replied, thinking of my dead nephews, and of Buckingham goading me to commit murder. “I believe in the ugliness of human nature that can only be subdued by merciless rule and punishment.” I added, thinking of my own life and what came after. “I believe in witchcraft, and in the devil.” I concluded, as Margaret’s warning of how the devil was after my soul haunted my mind.

“So you see the dark, but cannot imagine that there is also light?” There was disappointment in her voice. “I pity you Richard. I truly do. You sound like a man without hope.”

She turned away.

“You are my hope.” I uttered, before I could stop myself, before even my brains had realized with I had just said.

She turned her gaze back at me with large questioning eyes. Realizing that I could not take back what was said, I rambled on.

“Before I met you, my world was indeed a dark, most horrible and frightening place. I am only still alive because of you. I wish I could reward you in any way for your kindness.”

“There is no need.”

“What I mean to say is...I am grateful. Although sometimes it doesn’t seem so, I am truly grateful to you. I am sorry for treating you unkindly.”

The way she smiled back at me made my spirit light up like a star in the darkest of skies.

“Here, take this.” she handed me the dagger. It was the same one, I recalled, that I took to ruin her bedding that first night in her cabin.

“Help me dig out more of these roots before dawn.’ She requested. “We need plenty of them for the potion.”

We started working side by side, and dug up the roots together till the sun came up in the east.

 

TBC

 


	11. chapter 9: The hidden monastery

**1.1**

The snow had melted away and the sun was beginning to heat up the days when Ophelia told me she was to visit a nearby monastery. She invited me to come along. I was not eager to make new acquaintances, but she insisted and thought that I could be of help to her. After much persuading, I gave in, mainly because I did not want to be left alone. On an early morning in late April, we packed the horse with everything that she had hoarded up during the long winter months, and started the journey on foot, guiding the fully packed horse along long serpentine road winding down hill. It was the first time since my encounter with the wolfs that I had ventured so far away from the cabin during daytime. Spring had truly taken over from now and soon I found myself delighted by the sight of the early bloom that covered the entire forest floor with a yellow and purple carpet of delicate peddles, peeking through the fresh spring grass.

When we reached the valley floor, the open spaces with flowerbeds became much sparser, and although the rays of the midday sun still shimmered through the canopy of leaves above us it had much weaned in strength. We were going deeper and deeper into the forest.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” I asked. One would expect a monastery to be surrounded by fields and to be close to small villages or at least a major road. It was not supposed to be lying in the middle of the woods, and to be almost inaccessible except for only a more or less invisible track. It was then that my eyes caught sight of a wooden structure, hidden behind a dense growth of cedar trees. It looked like a platform build into the crown of an ancient-looking conifer.

“We are halfway.” Ophelia blew on her two fingers, producing a short highpitched whistle. A figure dressed in a hooded habit appeared on the platform. She waved at him.

“Don’t sound the alarm!” She shouted up at the man in the tree tops. “It’s me Ophelia.”

He seemed to recognize her. “Who is this man?”

“A friend. I brought him along to visit the monastery. I assure you, he can be trusted.”

It seemed to be a satisfactory answer. The man nodded in return, before disappearing in the canopy.

“Who was that man?” I asked Ophelia, confused by our strange encounter.

“He is a monk from the hidden monastery with guard duties.”

“Why is he guarding the road? Are there bands of robbers roaming these lands?”

“You could call them that I guess.” She replied with a sour smile. “He needs to warn the others when the king’s men approach.”

“The king’s men? They’re clergymen not thieves, for them there is no need to fear the king’s authority.”

Ophelia gazed at me in puzzlement. “They are Catholics.” She stated, as if that would explain everything.

“Yes, so is the rest of England including the king.”

“Is this a joke Richard? Are you pretending to be a time-traveler again?” Ophelia gazed at me as if I had just grown an extra head.

“What do you mean? I am not jesting, why would the king want to harm these God-fearing men?”

“Henry our king has a made decree to dissolute the monasteries. Most of England’s abbeys have been plundered, and whole congregations who have existed for centuries have been forcefully disassembled.”

“That cannot be true. That is blasphemy! What does the pope say about this?”

“We are no longer under the pope’s rule. Our king is now head of the church, the English church. A new religion for a new age. Apparently, it is no longer enough for tyrants to rule over their subject’s hearts alone, they have to rule over their souls as well.”

“How did this all happen? Why didn’t you tell me earlier.”

“How could you not know? They have been persecuting the Catholic monks ever since Thomas Cromwell sent out his first commissioners to do his dirty work for his royal master.” Her expression became solemn and anger rang through her voice. “I don’t mind that they smashed the statues of the saints or destroyed the stained glass windows, or even that they set fire to the libraries and destroyed centuries of knowledge. What I mind is that they have ripped out the heart of countless communities. It’s the common people who are the most affected by the king’s actions. They have no longer a place to turn to when they are in need. The poor are left to fend for themselves and the sick are dying in the streets.”

The forest suddenly stopped in front of us, revealing an large area of low growth that reached up to a circular brick wall in the distance. It fenced off a complex of buildings. The highest of those was a tower-like structure, narrow of shape and hardly 2 stories tall. Except for that, nothing surpassed the height of the surrounding trees. We entered through the main gate and were greeted by a group of monks that was headed by a bearded man dressed in a white habit.

“Friar Norbert.” Ophelia embraced him. I am happy to see that you are well.”

“My dear Ophelia.” The friar responded warmly to her greeting. “We have missed you.” He then looked at me. “I see you brought a friend.”

That I felt awkward and distrustful towards the friar would be an understatement. My previous experiences with any other human being except for Ophelia ever since I returned to this strange life had been disastrous so far. Standing behind her, I instinctively pulled back a little when the friar walked swiftly up to greet me.  

“How are you managing?” Ophelia asked the friar.

“At least at long last the long winter has passed.” The friar replied. “Thanks to your last year’s donations, we had enough in our larder to keep everybody warm and fed.”

He led us across the courtyard to the largest building. Inside was a great hall that had been turned into a ward with rows on rows of wooden coffin like boxes with straw bedding covered with linen sheets. Most if not all of them were occupied by the sick. There were men and women of all ages, children, and even babes with their mothers. Some of them looked emaciated, gaunt faces struck by starvation with hollow and empty eyes. Others were coughing continuously, marking their bed linen with red spots of blood. A man with a horrible rash on his skin had lost half his leg and was shaking violently while the friars tried to keep him pinned down as they treated his wounds.

“They keep on coming.” The friar lamented. “There are not enough other places left for them to go.”

“We are here to help.” Ophelia reassured him. “We brought new supplies with us. Food and medicine. Potions to treat gangrene, convulsion and fever.”

“I will ask brother Remus to unpack your horse. Thank you for bringing them, we are in such short supply. Nothing is yet growing in the gardens, and even if we were in the mid of summer, we probably could not grow enough to help everyone.”

“I know. I promise I shall do what I can to aid you in your good work.” Ophelia leaned closer to the friar, so the others may not catch their conversation. “Were there any new cases?”

“Yes I am afraid there were. A young girl who had lost her family during last year’s famine, and one of our own brothers who had tried to take care of her.”

She nodded with a grim expression on her face. “They are quarantined?”

“Yes, we followed your instructions to the letter.”

“Could you take me to see them?”

He let us to the entrance to the narrow tower and took us up a winding flight of stairs. A sickly stench came at us when he opened the door of a doorway that led to narrow space with high vaulted ceiling. There was only enough room for two beds. One was occupied by a young girl, the other by an old man. Both were drenched in sweat and hardly conscious. My stomach tightened when I saw the tell-tale signs of bubonic plaque; The large bulbous growths that bloomed like grotesque dark mushrooms on the necks and arms of the victims. The old man’s jaw so grotesquely swollen that he could no longer close his mouth and he was drooling incessantly on the sheets.

Ophelia was about to enter the room when I grabbed her by her arm. “Don’t go near them.” I urged her.

“Richard, I came here to treat the sick.”

“That may be but these two are beyond your help. Look at them. They are dying. If you go near them you’ll risk getting infected.”

“Not if I take the right precautions.” She pulled away and took out a piece of cloth, which she folded several times before using it to cover her mouth and nose. “Trust me, I know what I am doing.” She tied the ends behind her head, and went through her hip bag to take out a phial with a honey colored liquid. It was the potion that she had made from our winter harvest of mandrake roots.

“These people have entered the final stage of the disease. If I don’t treat them now they are going to die within days.”

“You don’t even know them Ophelia. Why risk your own life to save two strangers.”

“I did not know you either when I first found you in the woods. Yet I did what was right. I saved your life.” She turned to the friar. ”Could you could please bring me a burning candle and a thin knife with a sharp end. I need to lance the buboes before cleaning the wounds with the potion.” The friar nodded solemnly and ventured downstairs. Ophelia then turned back to me and said in a resolute voice; “If you value your own life so much, just go, but don’t prevent me from helping those in need.”

She stepped inside the chamber and closed the door behind her, leaving me standing alone outside in the corridor. Not knowing what to do, I waited till my resentment of her decision took the upper hand and made me leave.

 

**1.2**

I returned to the ward where, after I had watched friar Norbert rush upstairs with the requested implements, I waited for Ophelia to return. The high vaulted space was constantly echoing with the noise of the suffering sick, but I soon grew immune to it, being too occupied by my own grievances with Ophelia. As the shadows that were cast from the row of pillars in the adjacent corridor grew longer with every passing hour, I got increasingly frustrated. When she still had not returned by early evening, I contemplated to go upstairs to find her, but was too angry to want to have anything to do with her ridiculous quest for self-destruction. In my view, her saintliness was not merely incomprehensible, but absurd, the conviction of a fool who had missed the whole point of this _cruel_ world, that bad things happened without moral retribution and that no good deed was ever justly rewarded.

The only cautionary tale that was worth telling in this miserable life was that of the fight for survival. It dazzled my mind that from the lowliest worm struggling to slip off a fisherman’s hook to the youngest of infants crying for his mother’s milk could understand this simple logic, but Ophelia would or could not.

Sat in a dark corner, as far away from the others as possible, I leaned back my head against a pillar and observed the ceaseless activities that went on around me. The friars were patrolling the ward, rushing to carry out the thankless tasks of caring for the sick. Some were cleaning out the rotting maggot-infested wounds of amputees and injured soldiers. Others offered food to the frail, feeding them one half-spoon full at the time with saint-like patience. An elderly monk held on to a dying man’s hand who was shaking uncontrollably, caught in his final death throws signaled by the emptying of the bowels and bladder. The bleakness of it all only further darkened my mood.

Then I noticed that friar Norbert had re-entered the ward. He was gazing around, searching through a sea of faces, before he walked over to a woman who was sitting at the bedside of a man, who could be her husband in age. His complexion was corpse-like and his wide-eyed gaze showed an absence of mind as if he had already left this world. The friar put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, and she gazed up at him, her expression dazed with sorrow and exhaustion. The friar pushed something in the palm of her hand and closed her fingers around it, before talking to her for a while. Then the friar nodded in my direction, and they both looked at me briefly.  

I turned around to face the window. The way the woman reminded me of Elizabeth Woodville, my brother Edward’s hapless queen, deeply unsettled me, and brought back memories of the dark days just before my brother’s death. Similar to this soon to be widow, Elizabeth had been completely broken by grief. Once I had no pity for her sorrow, for she and her family had been standing in my way of the Yorkist crown, but now, I could not forget that whatever aggravation her existence had caused me, she had been devoted to my brother Edward, and her great grief for his passing had been more genuine than the artificial tears that I had shed at his funeral.

I was startled when the woman walked over and tried to catch my eyes.

“My dear sir.” She started hesitantly. “I pray you could spare me a moment.”

Up close, her features looked so very much alike Elizabeth’s, the same innocent doe-like eyes and warm kindly smile that had captured my brother’s love, that my heart skipped a beat. She held a small purse in her hands. Her nervous fingers fiddled with the rope. “I would like to say that we thank you wholeheartedly for your charity.”

“You have no need to do so.” I answered, baffled by her statement. “I have not been charitable to you in any way.“

“Forgive me, but Friar Norbert informed me that you have donated a large sum to the monastery to be distributed amongst the poor.” She responded with a timid little smile.

“My lady, I am sure you are mistaken for I have truly not done such a thing.” I replied bluntly, ignoring that her cheeks were now flushed with embarrassment.

“Well, my kind sir, my gratitude to you is justified, even if you would not accept it. You see, without these coins I would not be able to take care of my children, not without my poor husband…” She could not continue, and covered her mouth while tears started to roll down her cheeks.

I wished my heart could be hardened to stone, but her frailty unsettled me and I could not utter another harsh word to her. Instead, I awkwardly took her hand and held it till she had once again composed herself.

After she went back to her dying husband’s side, I caught friar Norbert’s eyes for a fleeting moment, and he greeted me with a sympathetic smile. I returned it with a reluctant courteous nod.

Not long after, Ophelia came down from the room in the tower. I intercepted her just when she rushed by, carrying a washbowl filled with blood and puss soiled linen wrappings.

“It was you, wasn’t?” I told her accusingly. “You gave away the coins that you took from Audemar and Greybeard.” It did not require much from me to put one and one together.

She gazed back with defiance gleaming in her eyes.

“You also told the friar that I have donated it to the monastery.”

Yes, yes I did.” She admitted.

“Why? Why did you do such a thing?” I asked, not without resentment.

“Because it did came from you.” She replied, returning me a meaningful look. “Those coins came from your two so-called friends who earned it by exploiting you. So it was yours to give. I simply helped you to make the right choice. Is that so bad?”

“I don’t mind what you did with it.” I said, telling her the truth. “But why tell _them_?”

“Is it truly so horrible to receive the gratitude of another human being for once?” She replied, rolling her eyes at me as she walked away.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I need fresh water from the well to bring down their fever.” She turned and gazed at me. “If you have changed your mind and want to help, you are more then welcome to do so.” She halted her steps and waited in the doorway to the outside courtyard.

I bit on lower lip. With my emotions in turmoil, I wondered if she had just pulled another trick to force me see the world in her way.

“Are you coming?” She asked again. 

After a moment of hesitation, I finally made up my mind and followed her.

 

TBC

 


End file.
